


The Arson

by DearMrReader



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: M/M, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-09
Updated: 2016-12-18
Packaged: 2018-08-12 03:52:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 47,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7919482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DearMrReader/pseuds/DearMrReader
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What happened with Bill and Ford those many years go? How did Bill come to find his power over dreams and most importantly what did he see in taking over the third dimension?<br/>Glimpse into both Bill and Fords past before the portal was built, and find out how it was that our friendly all seeing angle lost his mind. Inspirations taken from all aspects of gravity falls!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Incineration

**_"What sorcery is this? Who are you? Don't be such a fool! I'm you. If you are me, then who am I? Oh! You're so stupid. You are you also." - Samurai Jack_ **

 

Fords feet padded up the stairs which swayed despite their solidarity, a trait that he should have been used to by now given the many things he had seen from the past years.. Decades.. Time was still elusive to him now, even though he had moved faster than it at one point. Nonetheless, he pressed onward, up the ever long stairs which twisted and bent into ways unimaginable. Into hollows that could lead one up an overhang only to land flat, face pressed against some wall thereafter. Gravity did not work quite as it did in other places. In fact, he wasn't assured that anything worked at all around here.

This was his world, after all, Bill’s world.

At least what Bill had made of it after its destruction or so Ford had come to hear. He had hear other things as well. Pitiful loomings which made his blood chilled with each step, as those steps were made on the long forgotten corpses of those irregular beings who had once walked alongside Bill in his early years. Before his power trip.

“He always did have a thing for skin rugs…” he heard himself mutter as he stumbled in silence through the hollows, trying to escape without notice. There had been more freaks in Bill's army then he had planned for, shooting Bill and Co would not be as easy as he once thought. Lost in thought Ford might have ignored the sound of his own voice ringing out loud as he always did, but now his absent-minded brain train signaled the adversaries he had been trying to avoid.

Teeth tore through the ground’s flesh like spiked cleats after Ford’s voice, boosting the will of his body over that of his mind causing him to run and expose himself. It had been thirty years until this day, and yet with all the planning and preparation his mind had imposed upon him he was no match for the true terror that flooded his body and the miscalculations that he hadn’t foreseen. Rounding a bending hallway into a dark overpass, he stopped, letting his shallow breaths draw to a close, regaining his mind over body stance as the looming monsters of the horde stopped and unwound into a creeping sprawl. 

 

He was here to kill them all, mindlessly? No, he had made this decision based on calculations. What was lost today would in the end, be beneficial. 

 

“No one misses freaks after all,” he thought looking down at his own extra digit, “no one”.

He stopped his sentence snapping out of it. His history with Bill would end tonight as it should have a long time ago. Gripping his coat closed, he slumped against the dark wall trying to focus on what he was doing rather than what he was feeling.

 

"Well, you've made it this far Stanford. O'l buddy o mine.... Ha. Come out come out. Smart guys like us get so lonely after all. Didn't ya miss m-," his words were cut short with a quick shout.

 

"Enough! Don't toy with me any longer then you have to.. I'll finish you just like the rest of your goons you triangular menace"

 

"Stanford, Stanford, S..T..A..N..F...O...R...D," Ford listened as Bills tone grew slow and his voice dropped as if it was a record set to a lower speed, "I would believe you, but I SEE! No evidence of you doing anythin'."

 

Chuckles rang about the realm, lightly, sadisticly, in such a way that Ford wanted to prove them wrong. 

 

“Is this all a joke to him?” He screamed in his head, “I won't let it be when they're all counting on me.” He dashed from his hiding place, shooting, and only barely missing the paper thin form of the golden triangle who looked with his one eye for the origination of the shot. Instead, the beam bounced off the walls, floors, and ceilings of the Quadrangle of Confusion and his iris darted after it. Ford gripped the grenade belt wrapped around his chest, activating one before running directly at the monstrous herd behind Bill. His hand dropped the bomb as his legs pressed to the head of one unfortunate creature with the pressure to jump. With the explosion ringing behind him - he flew. He flew into the dancing light of the one shot he had made right into a wall which came drifting by on the gravitational wave created by the explosion.

 

Flesh and other bits of foreseeably the same material came splitting apart in strings, chunks, and fine puree. The red, pulsing organs of flesh strung out with the black and blue blood and fragments of other unfortunate freaks who were close to the blast. Beyond the fragment were the bodies, bleeding from their cavities, pooling softly in the folds of their last expressions as they bend over in end. Those without face or feature choked on the liquid from burst capillaries, falling to the crowd after as their blood pooled internally, forming boils that would lay poked and prodded in death.  

Gone, they were all gone.

 

But damage of the body does not affect those without a complete form. So there remained Bill, eye shut to the carnage as his unfinished face became spattered with the people he had come to inspire. Bill clenched his fist hiding his, rage his aggression. The feelings that had slipped away from him for years now. What we may refer to as humanity came boiling to the surface igniting the red hot flames in the sticky black arms of this two-dimensional being. In an instant, they faded out into the soft blue flames that suited the laughter that erupted from his figure in jagged waves of agony and pain.

Ford could not understand this, was it sympathy he felt for a moment. Who did this sympathy belong to?! The triangle as he looked over the monstrous minions that lay now as piles of indescribable organs?! Or was it Ford’s own foolish sympathy towards what he believed to be an obvious lie?! A selfish lie.

"A lie like your brother huh Ford?... He wrecked your dreams for his own gain and lied about it. And I wrecked my minions for my gain and lied about it-"

 

"Stay out of my thoughts you demon!" Ford had said as he launched towards Bill pulling out his sheathed blaster yet again to use as a bat. It was a pointless notion, however, as bill simply turned to his linear side watching Ford go sailing past landing in a sliding crouch.

 

"My realm my rules unfortunately Fordsy! Can’t hide nothing we share in common," Bill said as he began assuming a more impressive appearance, but Ford was used to this trickery.

"That old trick won't work!"

"Then try this on for size Fordsy!"

Arching backward Bill shot at the aging human who just barely managed to roll away and onto the flat of his belly. Bills soft chuckles loomed closer and closer to ford mocking him.

"you.... you won't win... if there's one thing I know... it's that you don't have the strength to win anymore. The oracle knows it, half the known universe knows it. You've failed Bill. You've failed and you've kept failing. And now you have to settle. For my dimension, but I can't let you do that. We both know that."

"'HA! Settling? Ford. No need to be so modest. Your world isn't settling. Hell, its been first place all along!" Bill’s words crafted a twisted smile even though he wore none as he reached for Ford’s hand and shook it himself. Ford tried to pull away but the blast had weakened his already weak body. The many blasts... He felt Bill pooling into his mind slowly releasing his consciousness from his body.

"AHH!"

Bill lurched out of his mind quickly as if spat out like one of Stanley's cooking class assignments (he was a terrible cook dear reader simply terrible). He stood their staggered before his waterline frowned for him in concentration and jealousy.

"Got some upgrades I should know about Ford... I thought you said your body was your temple!"

 

"YOUR temple Bill, but it looks like the implant was well worth the Smidgen spent on it."

Bill gripped his eyelid in frustration, looking down at Ford like a stereotypical envious woman would her husband as he spoke.

“So who’d you get them for?”

 

“Who? You don’t make any sense..”

 

“Don’t think that I don’t hear about your dimensional friends Fordsy… it wasn’t for-”

 

“Of course not, I already made a TERRIBLE, absolutely terrible, mistake by letting you in. So why would I get an inductor for Astar?”

 

Bill looked away with a sigh, unfolding his arms and placing them on where his hips would be as Ford's hand inched towards his gun unnoticed by the pondering yellow shape.

 

"I don’t know... but who am I to judge what's hip these days am I right?"

 

Bill turned back to wink saucily at him, and instead caught a sight of the loaded gun pointing right at him. Fear flashed into his eye, he had no time to react but luck drew nearer and saved him. Pyronica, the fiery being, had kicked the weapon from Ford's hand and slammed the human's face into the ground. How lucky, she and his other friends had been out of the blast zone. Probably off goofing around, but Bill was glad to see that their undesirable slacking off had saved them. I mean who said procrastination doesn't pay off!

 

"You okay," she said in that god awful voice of hers. Bill wanted her to shut up immediately now. Not only for himself but to spare the others who were also trailing behind her. Despite his relief, he was furious that she had interrupted them. If he should die by Ford then that would be fine. It was their gentleman's duel after all. What place did she have in it? The protective nature that belonged to any creature which bore offspring eluded Bill, it was the last thing he'd want to understand about poly-dimensional beings. After a long silence, she began to ask again,

"You ok-"

"Yes. Of course."

"Your tie is crooked."

She bent down correcting the tie gently, but Bill’s hand stopped her as he began fixing it himself. He wasn't angry any more, no use at being angry with someone who's sad tears could extinguish her fire and kill her. It wasn't... professional either.

"You've done enough Princess, let me handle the business transactions from here."

She giggled in a ridiculous way that made Bill's ego fly back up. The others halted beside him looking at the human as his extra digits pushed sharply off the ground. He was trying to rise, but Pyronica was too thick for him to even hope to rise under her weight. Bill curled back his hand punching out against the man who was trying to get up. He punched.... Punched... Punched again....

"Uh, Bill Boss.... You're not doing anything remember"

True, he was passing right through Ford. He was two dimensional after all, which made him like a Human to a ghost when confronting Ford.. ironically.

"Pyronica.... Princess... let him up. "

She stepped off him roughly letting the man beneath her breath heavily in relief. With his fist clenched looking like an impudent little boy Bill stared at the old man staggering up. Bills view shifted to Pyronica, looking up at her before extending a single hand,

"Fuse with me"

 

"What?"

 

".... It was a reference.... you know what it wasn't funny. You hit some and sometimes you miss sometimes ha ha.... Either way, can I use your muscle?"

 

"OH!! Sure you can Bill Boss."

 

With her smile alight and her fang gap peaking widely through her kind smile, she shook his blue fire hand letting the flames consume them both. The flames of her body reformed as the Triangle took control of her. The others howls of excitement could be heard around Bill as he opened his eyes to see Ford from a different angle. From Pyronica's angle.

 

"So Bill what are you going to do now. Wail on me until I open the portal for you?"

 

“HAHA. No,” Bill had said as he struck out against Ford knocking him back a few blocks, “This is for fun. I know you can’t open the portal from this side. I’m just knocking you sideways until you direct me to someone who can.”

 

As Bill lifted Ford up, looking at him devilishly, a cold but fierce wind picked up behind them. With Ford in hand Bill turned, looking from where the musty breeze originated from. For Ford the scent was familiar, memorable… it was the scent of home. The portal had opened slightly. The portal to memories, familiarities, the portal to home. And from it they could see the world.


	2. The Match

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 30 years before the events of Gravity falls - After finding out a few details about his job and friend Fiddleford, Ford receives more information on how to summon an entity that will help further his research. But is summoning this magic triangle really worth all the trouble?

**_"I should think you still have dreams... Well the next time you dream, give some thought." - Djura, Bloodborne_ **

_ 30 Years Earlier _

<()>

►◄

 

Ford peeled back his mask after examining the strange creature he had found within the cave, certainly, there had been more unusual things in this lab last week but this was at least mildly fun to draw and scan. The eyeball creature was mild in temperament and… frankly not what he was looking for. His theory that the origination of Gravity falls weirdness was drawn in by some underground center point extinguished in a more frustrating manner then his other theories had. What was he going to postulate now? What theories would he postulate? With a heavy handed sigh, he drew back from his work table to stare at the ceiling, his hand on his third journal thinking. He had seen something else in that cavern, drawings, inscriptions, he had written them down, but he certainly was no code cracker. He'd have to fax them to Fiddleford and wait. He hadn't expected research to be such a waiting game… At least not when he was in this type of field. He picked up the diagrams and poured over the inky symbols he had written before copying them over with the help of an old machine he had been given by his parents. He watched the light flicker past the images, and the sheets of white pages flow out like seafoam on the shoreline of his old home.

He sighed out the sentimental thought refocusing himself, but the sentiment was too vivid. His loneliness too valid on this cold winter day.

 

The phone rang cutting through his thoughts like a steam train whistle. He scrambled, tripping over the mess of books, the rug, everything - before the answering machine picked it up.  

 

“Hello, this is Dr. Stanford Pines. I'm currently out working to discover the Origin of Anomalies and as you could have guessed am not present at the moment - please leave a mess-”

 

“Got ya, Sorry about that. It's a nightmare to get to the phone. May I ask who's calling?”

 

“Oh, this is Clermont, from the antiquities department of Washington. I was calling about the funding placed towards your research from our anthropology department. We were very impressed with the oddities you sent to us, but unfortunately we've been having some cutbacks budget wise. This year's budget is going to be a bit smaller than last years, and we'd like to make up for it by sending a team to gather a few more physical samples.”

 

That idea cut Ford a bit short. The prospect of other researchers coming to Gravity Falls seemed unlikely to be fruitful. Most others who had come hadn’t found anything. They lacked it seemed, the relative weirdness that attracted anomalies to this place. Moreover, when they left the emptiness of the large cabin echoed sad reminders of their presence. Sucking in a stiff breath he shifted the phone, speaking again.

 

“I don't know about that. I wouldn’t want to draw your budget too thin with volunteers or interns.”

 

“Oh no worries Dr.Pines, we have a few in the area already. If you could just give them some pointers.”

 

“...Yes of course. Just send them to my address. I have a few spare rooms if they need. How long would they be staying?”

 

The specifics were lost in the short conversation between Ford and the caller. There was something else more concerning in Ford's thoughts, and that was his desperation. He was excited to have others here to talk with, but as the conversation drew out, things became a bit more twisted. The questions asked of him were… prying. Into his research more than into him as a person. He sighed mulling over the conversation when he pressed the dial-up into its receiver. The first conversation of the week, with someone as smart as he was and it was just about work. What was he expecting though?  It seemed that the department wanted to circumvent him from investigating this area. As always he was merely pushed to further humanity's potential, and when humanity saw his ideas prospering, he was easily shoved aside by flattery or some quick witted thief who would take it as theirs. He was making groundbreaking discoveries in anthropology, physics, and mathematics because of his work here. Did they not want him to discover it? Did anyone even care or consider how personal his hypothesis was to him?

The question plagued his mind until he fell asleep, dreaming until finally finding the answer. He flung up in an instant, disregarding the time as he grabbed for the plastic of the dial-up.

 

<()>

 

“Damn it Fiddleford he's trying to abscond with my work like some fictitious Villain!!,” Ford's fist hit the desk angrily as he clutched the yellow plastic dial-up, his frustration quaking through the phone lines.

 

On the other side of the line, Fiddleford kicked back from his desk sleepily. Rolling his eyes to refocus himself from his 3am nap on his workbench. Fiddleford spoke calmly into the phone with his quick southern drawl.

 

“Not every day that I get yelled at from over…,” pushing up his glasses Fiddleford quickly typed a distance algorithm into his latest project, “1,386 miles away… right?”

 

“Yes, that’s right. Hows your work coming along?”

 

“Darn well, I reckon, the wireless interface is already doing approximations. Now, what were you yelling about Six?”

 

“Nothing, I just suspect the director of antiquities is trying to uproot my research and take it for his own.“

 

“Her own, Ford. The director you're working with is a woman if done can recall. You must really be fuzzed up huh?”

 

“Damn right I am.”

 

“Well if I can recall I was in a similar situation a few weeks ago with some other fellas...  Chores and Fences... Jobs and Gates. Don’t remember their names… And a close friend of mine said that I just needed to lighten up and excuse my paranoia.”

 

“Maybe that friend of yours is right… maybe I am being paranoid.. I mean it was just one call…”

 

“Six… you said that to me..”

 

“....,” feeling his face fluster at his stupidity both friend shared a soft laugh which rang through the winter air with soft and jolly intentions. Cooling his brightened cheeks with the cold tips of his fingers Ford shifted the phone to his other ear.

 

“What a genius that friend of yours is huh?”

 

“Haha I found it a bit insensitive at the time,  but I understand where he was coming from now.”

 

“Yeah, I can be a bit insensitive at times. Either way, it's good to hear from you again.”

 

“Yeah, you too Ford.” Ford could hear the wheels of Fiddleford’s chair rock back and creak as if his body had leaned so far back that it draped over the back. He could hear his friend smile against the phone at the figure standing behind him before springing to life on the line again.

 

“Listen, I’ll talk to you again at a more reasonable hour… I woke my lady. You want ta say hi Eileen?”

 

The phone shifted hands, “What are you two crazy boys doing up at 3? It's 1 am for you too Ford so don't think I don’t know you should be asleep too.”

 

Ford winced, she called him on that one. 

 

“Oh, nothing just bothering your husband.”

 

“Ha, well sorry Ford. He can only be married to one person, and that's his work apparently. We both lose.”

 

“Ha,” Ford laughed hearing his friend whine at his wife through the muffled sounds of the phone static, “Well I guess I’ll stop trying. Goodnight Eileen. Make sure you get Fiddleford to his bed instead of his work desk this time around.”

 

“Ain’t my job Ford. Ain’t my job. Night, though. Keep researching you nerds,” She tossed the phone to her husband clinging to the chair behind him as he said his goodbyes before wheeling him off to bed laughing. 

 

Pulling the phone down from his ear Ford sighed. Perfect. It's not often that you find someone who makes even your flaws feel perfect, yet here his best friend found it. And somehow, that made Ford feel a grateful kind of hollow. He fell back to his bed, looking softly at the ceiling wondering about this feeling in his chest. This emptiness that extended from him into the silent creaking of the cabin. He let the silence rest for a long time.  It's feeling flooding too him carrying with it the static sound of quiet. He smiled, remembering that if he listened long enough, the silence would start to form nonsensical words.

“And if you listen too long, the silence eventually listens back,” he laughed trying to remember who had told him that before he pulled himself back up off the bed to work on faxing the inscriptions.

<()>

 

The fax machine fired up beside his computer waking him up with a loud electronic buzz as it spat out translations that he had sent out to Fiddleford to run through his decoder.

“Hum…,” he glanced at the clock, he had slept in a long time… very unlike him. He sat up finding himself to have slept in his glasses again, and nonetheless cracked them. Brushing the lens he sighed, taking them off and placing them on the drawer of his night table as he sifted through the drawer to find his other pair. His hands grabbed the long scrolling page of translations, reading, his eyes finding the words  _ demon _ first before jumping to  _ knowledge   _ scrawling over to  _ truth speaker  _ and ending with  _ origination of  abnormal _ . Origination! An origin point of the weirdness! Maybe his first solid direction he had on the origination of weirdness in history! A summoning ritual further peaked his interest, and he thrust open his journal entering the list of ingredients needed to summon the creature that promised to reveal all.

 

He slipped quickly into his red puff jacket, pulling on his boots, and his snow shoes after that. The dull gray sky overhead cast dim, cloud lit shadows across his shoulders. He closed the door, the lock tightening quickly after their key turned slowly. Walking to the store his mind was alight with thoughts, whatever danger he faced he could reason with. It was intelligent, this demon, after all, it knew more about this place than three solid years of research had given Ford. The wind whipped in his face, causing him to duck back into his sleeve. It was quiet down that road which had been so lively in the summer and spring. Even more so in fall, but now it was cold and dead. The eyes of birchwood trees seemed to watch him expectantly as he plowed on, leaving him feeling stickly in the cold.

 

He reached the market soon after, buying a trap, white candles, a few very bloody beef pounds, and a small case of bullets. He couldn’t be too precautious after all, and bullets would at least give him some distraction.

 

“This everything sir?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Going trappi-”

 

“I’m on a quick schedule so if we could skip the small talk..”

 

“Alright mystery man, just answer me one thing, though. You ever give tours of your science shack?”

 

“Science shack? No, not recently. Maybe one day.”

 

“Okay, getting my hopes up, that’ll be 161 dollars and 40 cents Man of Mystery.”

With a chuckle Ford handed over his money, taking his purchase before heading back home to make preparations. He exhaled cold mist as he walked through the small town. He needed that, even if it wasn’t stimulating, even if it made him feel more intellectually isolated than ever - he needed that small conversation.

 

<()>

 

He mixed in the Beef blood to the candle wax, after setting the trap out at the spot that seemed to fit the ritual. It was a spot amongst the birch trees, where the wind was still and the snow nonexistent. It was an anomaly itself  that spot. After pouring the candles back into their containers and setting their wicks he looked at his list one more time. He needed one more thing… something that would bring the summoner uncontrollable rage… what would he choose..? There was nothing that important that could really upset him… could there be?

 

The phone rang once more and he frowned. The department again.. He laughed aloud, perhaps he could use that as his center focus for the ritual. His hand grasped the phone line picking it up as he read the caller ID… it was a payphone… in Oklahoma…

 

“Hello?”

 

The line cut short soon after, and Ford could feel the misery that seeped from the heart of the caller. He could tell in an instant who it was, and slammed the phone down missing the receiver. He looked at the phone with disdain before looking at his wall where his family picture hung.

 

“Stanley..,” he sighed looking back at the phone picking it up gently and placing it back on its hook, “We can't apologize for everything. Not when we're too stubborn to admit we’re at fault.”

 

Thinking a bit more on it as frost strained the window, he reached down to the phone plug removing it from the socket, pinching the calling cable out of its insert as well. He would use this as his relic.

He walked out into the snowy field to check his trap, supplies in hand when he heard its harsh metal snap and extinguish some lifeforce. He dashed towards it, dropping his basket of supplies in the snow as he rounded the bend into the clearing.

 

The thing in the trap was awful to look at. It barely resembled what it was supposed to and its sputtering gasps were fraught with frothy blood that bulged up from its mouth. It had hit the teeth of the trap which dripped moist blood onto the black ice that cracked the ground. Its scales bulged up like curds against the smooth skin that underlay them, and through the puncture wounds, Ford could see that the snake had not been alone. It was gestating eggs and was probably in search of a place to lay them. The white bulbs now poked through the spikes were phlegm and yolk squirted from the newly forming fetuses.

 

He stopped, knees bend to the ground. This had been his first kill…. And it hadn't even been by his hand. What could he have expected, though, this was going to happen… this had to. But tears slipped from his eyes, his heart sinking into a void that seemed bottomless and consuming. He pried open the trap coughing as he tried not to throw up. The snake in the trap rolled its head to look at him, not in pain, not in anger or sadness. Merely in a soft and loving acceptance of its fate, and acknowledgment of Ford’s care and his unreadiness to kill. The bubbles at its mouth stopped, leaving Ford crying and alone as the forest watched onwards.

 

<()>

 

Gathering himself on shaky wrists, he picked up his basket arranging the items over where he had buried her. The snake he sentimentally gave a name to in its last moments. The thirteen candles took their place in a circle, as the phone was sat at the center. He stood circling the ground and began his incantation,

“Triangulum, entangulum. Meteforis dominus ventium. Meteforis venetisarium! animo nostro habeant et teneant locum haec via lux in tenebris lucerna.”

 

He circled again repeating the incantation as the wind flared up. Each of the candles’ flames upon each pass began to flicker with blue fire instead of yellow, burning hotter and quicker. As they did Ford found it harder to speak, harder to breathe, until on his last pass he fell to his knees his eyes blocked with intense tears of rage.

 

“egassem sdrawkcab!” he shouted into the snow, “egassem sdrawkcab! egassem sdrawkcab! egassem sdrawkcab! egassem sdrawkcab!!!”

 

Ford opened his eyes to see the world again, lacking color, slowing, dying all around him as the wind licked his face coldly. Nothing was there.. Just this moment. His rage calmed, replacing itself with a deep pain in his heart that overtook him. He had done all this, for the sake of seeing this creature that didn't even show and somehow wound up feeling more lonely than ever because of it. He had killed. Gone against his own wished. His brother… Everything that had happened, every connection he had made. It eventually dies out he thought. Like a wind, it is only there for one small second. A part of breeze that moves on without you. His tears hit the snow bringing the cold dead hues of blue red and yellow back to his world. With his mind heavy, he picked up his bag and headed home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, thanks for reading. More chapters will come soon. We may be jumping back and forth between after gravity falls and before gravity falls. Still deciding on the flow of this. Hope you enjoy it.


	3. Kindling

**_“We do have a lot in common, the same earth, the same air, the same sky. Maybe if we started looking at what's the same instead of looking at what's different… well, who knows?” ~Meowth, Pokemon_ **

 

It was in his tossing and turning that he awoke in the witching hour. Which was a time not at 12 or at 4am as most people think, but a small window of time at 3am where a majority of the world remained in soft slumbers.

He awoke not in body, but in mind. As he sprang to his feet, he found himself in a wheat field with buildings, torn and ragged, scattered around the field and overtaken by the tall stalks that grew there. The sky was hazy in his waking dream, clouds not merely looming in its bounds, but compromising it. Casting their pale facade for miles above him before curtaining just out of his sight on the horizon line. A pale orange sun swept overhead, gently, parting the sky slightly to let in a soft sliver of yellow. A crystalline mist which fell sterile over the contents of the world sprung out from the sky, leaving small rips where the light could pepper through in a faithless way. Hollow winds swept through the crop, making them glisten with the morning dew that was yet to settle on them.

Ford strayed here, wondering what he was doing in such a vivid place. He was certain this could only be a dream, the world was… so perfect. It felt exactly as he felt. Focused. Or rather he was focused, until examining the buildings to the point where he could recognize some.

His face fell into a scowl as he looked over the wreckage with swirling anger, that gripped him like a fist to the heart and twisted its large blocky hands into a piercing hot sensation that rushed to his cheeks and furrowed his brow.

He sighed smokey mist which fogged his glasses before casting his head sideways in shame… He was too smart for his own good. He was smart enough to recognize that he was lying to himself about being angry, but not smart enough to uncover what his subconscious was hiding from him.

He turned away from the building to pry the glasses off his face. He ruffled them about in the fabric of his shirt to clean them before feeling his cheeks which were still hot from retaining a mix of feelings. His hands were cold, though, like snow, and after placing his glasses on his face he slid his fingers up behind their frames to calm his cheeks.

“Pretty isn't it. It's a little lonely, though. Don't you humans have happy memories, typically? Then again, people who summon me aren't generally happy.”

Ford looked around, his fingers jolting from his face which regained its warmth from fluster. He hadn’t felt anyone nearby and the thought of being caught off guard doing something so strange made him embarrassed.

“Who?!”

 

“Haha aren’t you humans charming jumping to questions so quickly. This ain’t jeopardy you know. Here let's talk in one of your happier memories.”

 

As the voice echoed across the field, a gentle breeze parted a pathway through the wheat for Ford who couldn’t help but follow. He was perplexed and enchanted by the snappy voice that reminded him of those old fashioned gentlemen from the movies like  _ Music Man  _ which he used to play over and over again as a child.

 

“Don’t get too excited Ford, I’m a shape of simple pleasures after all.”

 

Ford felt himself smile even brighter as he kicked up into a sprint, chasing the wind as it curved round stone walls and bounded over wood fences kicking up fall leaves and blasting them off into the air like fireworks.

 

“Ha, a shape? You're just a disembodied voice from what I can tell right now. Where are you leading me?”

 

Ford began to slow, tired out as he tried to observe all around him. The field he had been in had started to diminish, leading him into a small periodical town with quaint cabins that reminded him of his college and the quaint town of Gravity falls where he now resided.

 

“Well, I’m leading you on. I thought that was pretty clear though sixer.”

 

As he rounded the corner following the wind which kicked up store signs and quivered the little crop that remained he found himself at the foot of a path where the buildings all ended at a broken fence line. He parted the gate but hesitated. This place seemed different from the other setting which had comforted Ford.

This was a place of a different nature. There were no buildings, it was only a small cobblestone pathway which meandered through birch trees in an endless stretch of patchy light. Sucking in a deep breath, Ford straightened his shirt before moving forth down the path.

The sun beat down on his back pleasantly, and the drifting smell of honey aromas fluttered about only to become heavy with the smell of smoke. He pushed forth finding that as he did the branch stumps or knots of the birchwoods bled with sap became yellow and bulbous like glass eyes. These strange formations seemed to watch him tentatively as he stopped his walking. Looking at them, Ford felt his tongue slip over words.

 

“Wha-?”

 

The eyes looking at him from the trees quickly closed after his questioning, the trees themselves giggling as he looked at them more fascinated than ever. They really were watching him. He strayed over to them curiously, with his smile beaming, he was just a boy at heart in this strange world. Ford’s hands reached out to touch the thin folded knots, but every time he got close to touching one the tree would slowly bend just out of his reach.  

 

“No fair.”

 

The trees giggled again and with due time he carried onwards. As he walked further he watched the trees leaves slowly diminish to a white pallor.  With even more time, the trees themselves became polygonal in form looking poorly rendered and blocky. Unnaturally they unraveled in data like bits as he pushed on, and the path slowly faded out into a dull white absence. Then faded slowly to a black void. Before he knew it he was walking down some unseeable path which then began to materialize, turning into a black galaxy alight with Starline wonders which contained scattered text and documents which floated weightlessly around.

 

He stopped in front of a large scroll with writing scrambled over it in his handwriting. Picking it down from its overhead flight he began to read down the page until he felt eyes on his back and turned around to see a yellow triangle floating behind him. But this was no ordinary isosceles, or equilateral as he quickly corrected himself, it had a single center eye which was fastened with long black lashes to match its legs, arms, hat, and bow tie? Why did it have a bow tie? Why did it need to be so formal?

 

“Hi-ya-there smart guy.”

 

It talked. He couldn't believe… it talked… this was that gentlemanly voice that guided him here? This… flying nacho?! He gasped startled as ever as the figure zipped closer to him.

 

“Whoa slow your roll, don't have a heart attack, yer not 92 yet.”

 

“Who are you?”

 

“Names Bill, and your Stan Pines, the man who changes the world. But I’m getting ahead of ourselves. Let's take things back a little. Hows about a game?”

 

Bill snapped his fingers, and before Ford's eyes there appeared a chair beneath him, which scooped him up, and a table before him which was set with a blank board. A tea kettle and cup appeared in the small hands of the triangle who poured it upside down making the liquid complete a 270 turn to land into the cup. With a flick of his left hand, the triangle slid the cup through the ashen smelling void into Ford's hands, shooting the right hand he had held the tea with up as he did.

 

“T-thanks.”

 

Ford added as he accepted the tea, drinking it quickly as the first sip hit his lips.

 

“Don’t mention it. No really don’t, I don’t want other people thinking I treat you special. Then they'll expect me to treat them special…” His little arms dangled limply at his sides as he spoke, his face bending a bit down as it contemplating whether or not telling Ford that was a good idea, let alone a good joke which it had intended to be... He was trying to impress him.

 

“Either way, what game do you want to play?”

 

Ford looked at him dumbfounded, game? What did he mean? His eyes drifted briefly to the board as he slowly understood. Then they bounded back to Bill's, looking at him directly so that the triangle could see himself in their hasty disks. Bill stiffened, to himself, he looked like a lier. But he didn’t want to look away.

 

“Honestly, I have more of a desire to ask some questions rather than play a game.”

 

Bills eye curved into a smile as he finally broke their long unannounced staring contest.

 

“Ha, twenty questions it is then sixer.”

 

Ford couldn't help but smile back, even if it was a dream, he’d never met someone so quirky that it made him charming. He tilted his head back thinking, watching as Bill took his own cup of tea and summoned an eyedropper in which to drink it by. He found his eyes focused on how his new companion went about drinking so much that the questions he had became lost.

 

“Sixer… little too focused on my autonomy wouldn't you sa-”

 

He shot his head back up to straight, making his words quick.

 

“Sorry it's just, you're the first demon I have met..”

 

“Oh well aren’t I flattered to be your first,” Bill batted his eye at that swinging his feet like a shy little boy before saying, “maybe I should ask you some questions first. So what do you like to be called the most? Ford, Stanford, Fordsy, Sixer, The Author, Brainiac…. Pointdexter-”

 

“Anything but the last two… and preferably Ford… the author has a nice ring to it. Very, sci-fi.”

 

He bent his fingers in air quotations around sci-fi as a smile flashed on his face that drew out some sentiment in Bill that had been long tucked away from humans.

 

“It will catch on one day,” Bill's eye creased into a smile before winking.

“You can't tell, but I’m winking it looks like a, well nevermind you get it.”

 

With a wave of his hand he pushed Ford to take his turn, he was actually enjoying this human so far. He wasn’t pushy like others and gave him space to joke. He was a real soft heart.

 

“Oh, right. So... What are you exactly?”

Bill gave him a quizzical look, trying to figure out what he meant by that. Ford, however, took it another way and quickly interjected, his hands up defensively by his shoulders letting Bill look at his extra digits.

“If that’s not offensive to ask I mean! If it is so-”

 

“You mean… my species or my material composition.”

 

Bill stared onward at the digits, this human was different than the rest. He wasn’t just strange on the inside, but on the outside too. He was alike him.

 

“Species.”

 

“Well that's a bit tough, there are different names for my kind. Flatlanders would be what you would typically call them, but it's a derogatory term. Not that I mind that, we deserve it. We refer to ourselves merely as polygons if you want to be PC. Though some of the upper class consider themselves a different species from the rest of us do to their side counts. Ha. Rich folk am I right?”

 

“So your people don't all look… triangular.”

 

“Yeah. Same way your people don't all look tall and handsome,” Bill laughed gently watching Ford ruffle his hair embarrassed by the flattery. He rested his side on his hand, Ford wasn’t the only one who was being charmed at this moment. Feeling himself slip a bit he stiffened up again, trying to detach. He had a job to do, and as the question resonated with him he regained that stance.

 

“No, they aren't exactly my people either. Flat minds in a flat world, with flat ideals,” Bill looked down softly at his hands whose fingers had threaded together. He sighed deeply before perking up again. “No, I'm what you'd call a dream demon, though that's not as bad as it sounds.”

 

“So what are you doing here and why bring me alo-”

 

“Skipping my turn already Fordsy?”

 

“Oh, excuse me I didn’t mean to.”

 

Again he waved his extra digits to clear all ill intentions from his speech, catching Bill's attention again, making him smile.

 

“I’m just yanking your chain. Well, you see Ford. I’m a muse.”

The words caught in his throat as they always did every time he delivered this rehearsed line to those he victimized. As it had done when Nikola, Leonardo, Modoc, and much more fell for the falsified faith of his godly triangular visage... This one no more than the others had, but it left something new rippling through his being. Was it faith?

“Someone with access to knowledge from other dimensions and times beyond your own. And I'm here to help inspire you, as I do in every century.”

 

“So the warnings in the cave..?”

 

“Not all beauty comes with grace Ford. Some people get mad at those who boasted about their godly backing. Now for my question… When did you want to start?”

 

A smile peaked on Ford's face, he wanted to start immediately. This was it. This moment was what he was looking for all along. No matter the cost. It was worth it to be with a person that made him feel like he belonged.

 

<()>

 

He shook Bill’s hand and finalized the details before Bill took his hand in his own, tugging him happily back down the path of books floating in space. He was soaring, happier than he had ever felt before. He had won him over, and moreover, he was sure that this human would be his ticket to higher power. To become a god with unlimited intention.

“See all these Ford. These will be your works! This is what you can do.”

 

“Ha, I have my work cut out for me huh?”

 

“Not really, they're all projections. Copies of the originals you're yet to create. Wish I could do something like this.”

 

“Why can’t you.”

 

“I’m Bill squared right now, not bill cubed. Need to be raised in dimensional power because right now I’m not physical. Not in your world. Just here. So as you imagine I can’t touch a single thing in your world, and I can't work in my own because it lacks depth. This place is a perfect medium, but no reality TV show you know.”

 

“Speaking of, where is here. I know I’m dreaming, but it feels so real.”

 

“Smart guy? Are you serious? You don’t recognize your own min- well I guess this void part is my mind…” Bill tugged Ford hand a bit more leading him back down the birch roadway back to the field which had livened in their absence.

 

The tall now green stalks of the wheat blew gently with the soft breeze that overtook the hollow winds whipping around them the smell of sea salt and sand. Smells that surprised Ford and reminded him of - well of his brother. He frowned remembering the phone line that he had used to summon Bill, was he really still upset about something that happened five years before? No, he was upset that he didn’t call Stanley back, that he didn’t try to do... Something… anything… he was upset that his brother didn’t try as hard as he did to amend the mistake he had made.That maybe he really didn't matter to his brother.

Bill felt Ford’s hand clenching up around his own and frowned nervously. He didn’t remember how to comfort someone with emotional confusion like this. That wasn’t true, though. He knew how to do it and nonetheless wanted to. He just didn't want to attach to someone that he considered just an instrument to his greater ploy, and that's what kept him from speaking.  Bill drew a finger from his other hand up to his face stretching his skin as they halted in awkward silence beside the memory of the Stan-o-war. He felt Ford quiver and his skin run cold as his mind raced about. Then he felt his tongue slip over the words he had been trying to swallow.

 

“Ford. Hold the phone because I need you to dial it in. You’re living, you occupy space, and you have mass, right?

 

“So?”

 

“So?! You’re matter. You matter”

 

Ford sighed, feeling a bit better as he turned to look back at Bill. His eyes opened with a smile just long enough to catch the smile of the person next to him. Wait, person!! He looked again with a shocked expression and sure enough the triangle that had been leading him back here was gone. In his place was a tall slender man, probably in his twenties, with curly bleach blonde hair which struck out against his dark tan skin and Egyptian features. The man seemed to smile, his eyes closed, with his black gloved hand wrapped around Ford's just like..

 

“Bill?” The blondes yellow lashes slid opened slyly looking at him quizzically through his green and blue heterochromatic eyes before suddenly fear flashed in them as he looked down at his hand. Bill’s face flashed back upwards to look at Ford with a pinned smile of embarrassment and exasperation.

 

“Whoops, held your hand too long,” he tugged his hand away with a twist that almost reminded Ford of dancing. Turning on his heel, Bill stopped to face Ford who observed the strange attire he had on. For starters, he wore tan, slightly heeled, oxfords under pitch black trousers which matched his long black square coat. His flowing white shirt which he had only been fastened to his thin frame by his priests-like collar tie and belt blew gently in the friendly breeze as he straightened his body. He snapped down his fingers quickly igniting a quick cleansing blue fire to burn up the form his dreamscape projection had taken.

The fire whipped angrily, but much like water around his body which vanished from Ford's sight as the flames burst violently, turning red. When the fire died the small triangle was left sitting in the ashes. He picked himself up, brushing off gently before explaining himself.

 

“Excuse my lack of professionality, sometimes contact with an active dreamer in their mindscape allows them to control how I look. After all, you can do anything here… just no 18+ while I’m here.”

 

With lack of words, Bill turned his view to the sky which had turned dark and starry in the time that they spent talking, which had been at least a day. The sliver of orange sun in the sky had fully closed and above them was a wide open moon which cast light upon Ford making his form start to become opaque and ghostly. Looking up into the sky, Ford felt himself slowly Fade towards oblivion. He reached out to grab the hand of his new friend, his muse, to thank him before he drifted off.

 

“Looks like you're waking up Sixer. See you next time… but remember! Reality is an illusion, the universe is a hologram, buy gold, bye!"

 

In his rapid speech, Bill hadn’t noticed that Ford had already left. He sighed stooping over within Ford's mindscape to form a little ball out of his body.

 

“Guys so arrogant, he’s going to be real easy.. Ha.. I’ll be out of here in no time. Ha. Ha.. out of here and onto the next phase of the plan. Infinite power here I come, baby! No matter the cost!” He gripped his chest as he stood up again, looking onward at the sea of grain before him. Talking about Ford like that seemed wrong...he didn’t know why it just did. Sucking in a short breath he tossed back the thought in his head with a sadistic laugh.

“Nah. That seems a bit too pricey!”

 

<()>

 

Bill carried himself home, back to his realm in the nightmarish hell that had become his dimension not too long ago. He crossed through his own mindscape looking down at the walkway stones which vanished as they always did when his mind became separated from those who summoned him. He eventually halted, gliding down to the floor to walk on the remaining path stones into his world.  Thinking about the successful induction of another, more intelligent, pawn to his brilliant scheme delighted him enough to make him want to walk. Passing through his own mindscape he started to skip from stone to stone sinking them down sadistically until there was none left to choke out. He smiled as he turned to continue walking into the black void.

The smile was wiped from his face immediately as his reflection stared back at him from the white nothingness. He thought he had burned this human form… but here it was again implanting itself in his subconscious. He stooped down to examine his face more closely, running his hand over his smooth cheeks before rolling his eyes and pointing at his reflection.

 

“Stop putting yourself in this form.. We talked about this. This isn't the priority anymore…”

 

With a sigh, he looked up at the barren sky before rolling up and letting his head fall back down to his reflection again. This time, he was a plucky little triangle again. He adjusted his tie and hat before jumping up to float through his mind again.

 

“Was it that guy who made me slip up, I mean I haven't slipped up in years. I mean he was a weirdo after all with those six fingers... “ Bill took his hat off his head, pulling from it a watch to check the time. He gazed at its silver insignia, some weird lion unicorn snake thing, before clicking its top to open the pocket watch. Inside was a carved date and message which read..  _ Don't forget Oct 3 10.   _

 

“I really need to stop buying hand me downs…”

 

He checked the hands before quickly before staggering back. A full day had passed when he had been talking to Ford. A full day. None of his transactions had lasted that long, and yet it seemed like it had only been a couple of hours tops.

 

“What?! Well, you know what they say about time Bill. Time goes by when you're living a lie ha. ha. ha.”

 

He reached his destination shortly after. The nightmare realm glistened softly with twinkling stars and pulsed violently with music from all dimensional walks of life. He quickly zipped through the confusing array of surrealist walkways until he reached his wonderful pyramid. He wanted to be alone that night. He needed to be in order to chase away the confusing feeling that filled his face with harsh contractions and butterflies. He needed time to understand them. After rounding the dark corners and avoiding some other oddities he slipped into his home undetected. Or at least he thought so until he reached his study.

 

“Bill Boss? How did it go?!”

 

“Oh… ha. Hi-ya princess. Plans in motion! You ready to party?!”

 

“You know I am!”

 

Pyronica smiled at him with such kindness it made him sick. He didn’t want to be mothered, especially by a being younger than him. He didn't deserve that kindness.

 

“Bill everyone's waiting for you downstairs! They wanted to celebrate the attempt!”

 

“Ha, those guys want to celebrate everything. Think I’m going to take a rain check. I'm feeling a bit under the weather if you catch my drift,” Bill laughed loudly at his own setup pun, and Pryonica shook her head softly at him.

 

“Oh, boss. Get some rest okay.”

 

“Ha, in your nightmares honey,” as he drifted from the room Pyronica peaked over her shoulder to look at him. She could tell something was off about him. Usually, he’d put on a face and party with the others to forget, he liked to forget for a little while and the rest of them loved to help him forget.

 

“Bill? Maybe you and Kryptos could go out again. He’s not much for parties either, and I know you like messing with people like he doe-”

 

“Pyronica. Just… leave me alone right now okay.”

 

“Okay. I’m here when you need me.”

 

Bill looked down softly at his swinging feet before laying down in his study chair, releasing the magic making his arms and legs, letting them fade out. Pyronica leered as she exited the room leaving the little equilateral being to sleep as all two-dimensional beings do, with his planes parallel to the ground in such a way that made him look more like a drawing than a creature. He closed his eye letting himself relax and sink into sleep his heart content and warm as it hadn’t been in a long time. He was amongst his people after all. The freaks and sufferers. 

 

And perhaps he had found one more.

<()>

 

Ford's eyes fluttered off his cheeks, his hair dusty  from frost and his body stiff as he stretched. The nap he had decided to take the afternoon after his summoning was certainly well spent, but not well located. He had fallen asleep outside under the trees that swayed in omission outside of his house, his hands clutched around the work he had hoped to solve there. He looked up once more at their daunting nature before feeling the fluster paint his cheeks.

 

He was freezing out there and immediately dashed to the house, kicking up the snow that had blanketed his legs in a light film. He emanated joy as he bounded into the house, slamming on the heater, tossing his research on the table, and he quickly grabbed a blanket to wrap himself in. He settled into shivering as his hands pittered about trying to find a warmth as they retracted into Ford's long sleeve shirt.

 

When he was sure he wasn’t dying of frostbite, he drew himself back from the space heater and to the kitchen table where he had thrown his journal. He peeled back the cover, lifting the pages quickly until his eyes met a blank sheet.

 

“Where is my quill..”

 

Despite it being old fashioned, Ford preferred classical writing quills and nibbed pens to modern writing utensils. Spying one looming on the counter he snatched it up and began to record his dream encounter. He described it vividly, the scenery, the actions, the gestures of goodwill from a dashing gentleman. Accompanying that description of events with drawings as he always did.

His quill hit the page to draw Bill, but his hand stalled welling ink onto the paper as his mind drifted. How should he draw his muse? As his true triangular construction or as the attractive green eyed blonde man. Attractive. The description hung in his mind as he found himself startled about his selection of it.

He had to admit to himself there was some lust in his choice, and that clung sickly to his heart. Love wasn’t such a shallow thing, he didn't love men, and certainly not his muse. He did, though, feel inactivated by the beauty of men. They were exquisite, and much like with women he felt unnerved around those charming individuals.

It was only a physical love he had towards men, one that he knew was frowned upon and thus never indulged in and cultivated past physical admiration. He had with women, though, but those few faded quickly from his life thereafter as they lacked interest in his mind.

He was certain he was going to end up alone now. There was no one to talk with on his level anymore and it was crushing for him to realize this rather than live in blissful unawareness.  At least he had friends. Attractive fri-

He scratched the thought from his mind, penning his muse in his true form. When he finished the limbs he chuckled to himself, adding on small heels to the shoes of the drawing as an inside joke.

He picked up the book and blew the ink on the page before setting the spine of it back on the table. His fingers curled up against his collar, tugging it to release the heat and tension from his chest. It was warming up too much in this room.

He creaked past the heater and across the floor to lower the temperature by cracking open the door to let in some cool air. Grabbing the door handle he opened up the door just a crack, finding the shadows of another's shoes to drift in from the outside doorway.

 

“Dr.Pines?”

 

The shadows moved closer to the entryway as a hand pushed aside the cedar of the door.

 

“I’m here on behalf of the antiquities department of Washington. For the research position, they sent me here to -”

 

“Oh, of course, come in. You're early. I wasn't expecting you for a couple of days..”

 

“No, I'm right on time. You said to come on the third at noon. Did you lose track of time?”

 

Ford's eyes darted to his radio clock, sure enough, it had rolled over to the third. He furrowed his brow, he had been asleep for a day. It hadn’t seemed that way..

 

“No you're correct, I lost track of time talking to another research partner.”

 

“I didn’t know the department had sent another researcher, or perhaps they're from somewhere else. Do you know who they are? ”

 

“Somewhere else is an understatement, but yes.”

 

Ford's eyes trailed back to the new assistant looking over his features carefully. He was a mossy headed brunette with a cruel winter swept face which was softened by the tilt in his broken nose and his childish tooth gap and rounded face. Despite it all, he was clearly Ford's age, 28ish, with quick eyes that wandered with similar curiosity around the room.

 

“That’s exciting. I’m Noam Sparks, but you’ve already learned that from the specs sent by the department.”

 

“Actually I haven’t seen your resume. They didn't fax me, and sent everything by mail which takes a long time to reach these parts.”

 

‘Especially out here.  I had a hard time finding this place, even got my car stuck in the snow a couple blocks back.”

 

“Don't worry, you won't need it until spring. Let's get you fitted in the spare room, it's probably been an exhausting day. I’ve actually heard about you elsewhere, though.”

 

“My spelunking work and theory of Morphic fields within animals as means of migratory direction published in the papers?”

 

“Yes, how did you-”

 

“It's on your coffee table over there.”

 

“I suppose it is. Caught me red handed there, it actually helped found my own work on this project when I read about it last month.”

 

Ford smiled, tossing his hair up from behind. Floofing it for power as to remain in control of his obvious fanboying. He was working with someone who had jointly influenced him to focus on documenting the unseen with his own work. Though Sparks was from no simple means as Ford was.

 

“It was a quick read, dismissed by most because it's evidence is not as secure as common science dictates it should be. But that won't stop me. Shouldn't stop you either.”

 

“Ha, well it hasn’t so far.”

 

Ford lit up as their voices bounded in the open space of the shack. He was finally starting to live he felt, and that joy swelled his confidence as he opened up another room and followed after Noam to help him unpack.

After finishing arranging the room, Noam stepped from it into the kitchen. The wood under his feet remained quiet as he flicked on the light which shone off an object glittering on the table. His eyes caught onto the thickly bound Journal, and his hands reached for it after to scroll through the pages.

Interest peaked as he pulled through the pages, seeing the amazing flora and fauna drawn in detail and summarized on the pages.

These creatures were all mythological it seemed. Perhaps he had stumbled on a pseudoscientist rather than a real researcher. He folded the book back up, leaving to find his new partner who was held up in his lab as always. As he strode through the darkened hallway, he could swear something was watching him. He pitched his head quickly to the side to crack his neck before shucking his shoulders forward, it was just mythical nonsense. Nothing was watching him.

He looked over his shoulder again nonetheless, this time seeing a large spider watching him from its web. Its bright yellow slotted eyes looked onwards at him before he cruelly swatted it from the web continuing onward.


	4. The Sparks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So this was the longest chapter I have ever written on this fanfic :D. I hope yall enjoy and I'm sorry for the infrequent updates. I'll try to keep chapters smaller as I try to piece together more of the story.

**_“The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.”~ Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde_ **

 

Noam heard the squealing immediately after rounding the corner before dashing towards it with intensity that outmatched his normally coarse and decisive personality. Was it a bird he was hearing, could it be with it’s abnormal swirling cries that drifted through the air like a wind song? He thrust open the door to Ford's study spotting Ford hiding behind the flank of his desk. The room fell into a stark silence which overtook the absence in everyone, creating a great divide in thought between all occupants of the room. Casting a snapping gaze at Ford, Noam spoke with boyish curiosity towards the man who searched around the room, hunting for something.

 

“What are you doing?”

 

Ford brought a hand to his lips, motioning for silence before crawling over to him to tug him down and into his hiding spot at the foot of his desk. The desk jostled, shifting the papers on it from their position beneath their stone paperweight. When there was no one in clear sight or sound, the calls began again loudly and agog with wonder as whatever made them crept about the room. In a low groveling whisper, Ford spoke to Noam in a barely discernable and quick bit of conversation.

 

“Thanks for bringing my Journal. I was just going to go get this.”

 

“What is this Fo-”

 

“This specimen, i-is um… I believe it's the hide behind but I can’t exactly discern that as the creature keeps hiding behind objects whenever it feels eyes upon it. As its name would imply.”

 

Flipping through his book he landed on a page where a shadowy figure was drawn upon the paper alongside other cryptograms and the like of mysterious notes. The page was entitled in thick black ink, The hide behind or Idrus Obcultator, and overall was very sparse in information beyond a few paragraphs. It was nonetheless a fairy tail to Noam who huffily sat behind listening to the sound until it died down. 

 

“Has it left?” 

 

“Maybe it's moved to another location?”

 

“So what should we do?”

 

He chuckled, amused at himself for playing along with this snipe hunt, but nonetheless aware of somethings eyes upon him. He looked out a glassy window towards the cold morning air feeling uneasy as he did. Something was making eye contact with him. The same something that had been making eye contact with him in the hallway. He dropped his gaze, looking over at Ford who seemed to scout the room with his eyes like he was observing a find it puzzle rather than a creature that was obviously stalking them if it even existed. 

 

“How’d it get in?”

 

“I can only assume Bill led it here, as hide behinds usually don't go inside buildings. He said he'd help me with researching some of the harder Kryptos of gravity falls after all.”

 

“Bill is the name of the other person you talked about earlier, correct?”

 

“Yes.”

 

There was a long period of silence that set between all occupants of the room, one that made Noam practically fidget with anticipation and awkwardness. He folded his arms up straightening his back against the lacquer wood desk as he glanced through hooded eyes at Ford. He would have to break this quiet, he couldn’t handle it.

 

“Tell me about him. After all, I do want to be able to recognize him.”

 

“He's attractive.”

 

“Attractive? How descriptive. But I don't want to hear about his character traits… What does he look like I mean?”

 

Ford frowned in dismay, the truth would surely expose him to ridicule. I mean it's not often one can conceptualize the amazing and fantastic thought that life, cognitive life, could exist outside of one's own species. He hated being found ridiculous, but that’s not what drove him to frustration. He didn’t want to loose the only human he had been in more intimate contact with in weeks because he was found to be ridiculous. He wondered for a moment before setting to describe the shape in a way that was true, but comfortable for those less indulged in weirdness.

“He's a blonde, bleach blonde, almost white haired which is curly in texture. He has a very crisp look about his face, almond eyes which are heterochromatic.”

 

“Sounds more like a model than a researcher. You describe everyone in such detail commonly?”

 

Sparks smirked, glancing over at a small shadow which caught his eye as it moved slightly to the left. Whatever was in there, as he was now sure something was in there, it was hiding almost too well for it to be simply a normal animal.

 

“You are a biological anthropologist, don't you need all the features of a species in order to truly understand it?”

 

“Yes. I just wasn’t  expecting that kind of knowledge expressed towards humans.”

 

Moments ticked by turning into measurements of time that seemed to trail onward without impact. Ford enjoyed the tension, thinking that in this moment he was fine with the absence of words and actions. He was fine drifting into that lonesome void that can only be reached through experiencing a single moment in life so presently, so tethered, so alive yet stationary. Though unlike how most people who reached moments like these in turmoil or fear, he was adrift more so in wonder which drove his lonely self to feel complete, worthy, dare he say accomplished. For though it was such a small action that would ripple out to a lone few before extinguishing, this action of nearly capturing imagery of something so lucid felt justified. His time felt unwasted, whereas Sparks disagreed wholeheartedly.

 

With at last a long sigh, Ford pulled himself up. The feeling of purpose was gone almost instantaneously and replaced with impatience. 

 

“Looks like it won’t be coming out anytime soon. It’s early anyway and I can only assume you are just as tired as I am.”

 

“Good speculation, but your theory is a bit off.”

 

With a reluctant sigh, Ford turned his back to Sparks who watched as the shadow moved after Ford towards the doorway. He wanted to reach out and stop Ford, fearing whatever it was would attack him, but he froze immediately as the figure came into view.

 

Kryptos was an understatement, the gaggley form of this creature was certainly another species if not another animal order entirely. Its cracking form, yellow eyes, and vaguely kind smile seemed more stonelike than any other material. Its ribcage was prominent, but beyond that, its form was as slim as its long fingers and toes. Living stone, lack of common organ systems, this was an impossibility beyond modern science.

 

He watched it in amazement as the creature followed closely behind Ford, mimicking his way of walking playfully before quickly concealing itself as Ford turned to speak again lifting one of his fingers as if to point out his thoughts. He opened his mouth, but then sighed regretfully muttering,

 

“Nevermind,”

 

before striding back down the hallway. The hide behind was still there frozen in its hiding spot as its eyes met with Noam’s. It shifted to the side, trying to hide from him and Ford at the same time. It couldn’t.

 

“Ford… pass me your book…”

 

Turning around again, Ford looked quizzically at Noam who pointed quickly at the creature which loomed in its exposed position behind a bookcase, trying not to be awkward. Ford stared at it wide eyed as Sparks eyes dashed around looking for something in which to drot down its shape. He found a camera sitting on the desk and with fingers rushing snatched it, turned on a dime, and shot the picture of Ford and the creature.

 

The flash filled the dark room blinding all for a short amount of time before once again their vision settled. Only two remained in the room now. Ford, who whipped around trying to find the creature once again, and Noam who desperately tried to quicken the development of the polaroid with a few shakes of the image.

 

“Come on, come on!”

 

“Did you get it!”

 

“I don’t know! That was amazing!”

 

“Where did it go!”

 

“Develop already…”

 

Noam stopped his words, looking at the picture with a concerning smile that stopped Ford's eyes from dashing about the room to focus on him.

 

“What is that look for?”

 

“It threw up a peace sign…”

 

Laughter filled the air with sweet intentions and intellectual wonder as the picture was displayed between them. Through the musty sepia tones on the picture the creature stood with peace sign flashed toward the camera and Ford to it left looking shocked and amazed with his hands grabbing his head. Grabbing the photo from Noam, Ford looked over the image with a broad grin on his face examining the details of the elusive creature carefully as they set down the hallway abuzz with excitement from what had just happened. 

 

The cracking stone features set off by cold grey and brown tones seemed almost ethereal, but they weren't the first thing to catch ford's eye. It was instead the piercing yellow slotted eyes that seemed to tinge with pain and sorrow that caught him first.  

 

They didn't seem to belong to such a happy creature.

 

<()>

 

“So I'm a blondey huh sixer?”

 

“I meant nothing by it. Wait how did you know I said that?”

 

“.... Stalking is a form of flattery in some cases, Ford!”

 

“In very few cases.”

 

Ford sat up opening his eyes expecting himself to be back within the field of his mindscape, but instead he found himself in his room once more. The colour was bleached from the room, however, leaving it a stagnant black and white as air hung with the smell of flame and fire. It was a grey world, where time seemed not to carry around, and the only aspects that remained in colour seemed to be Ford and his triangular friend who sat on the end of his bed feet folded up crisscross applesauce and hands posed like The thinker under what would have been his chin.

 

He sighed in contemplation before looking over to Ford.

 

“So I’ve been making deals, plans, some of which will help expand your research a bit. Yesterday was just the tip of the enigmatic iceberg.”

 

Picking himself up the plucky little triangle hopped off the bed to stand on the wooden floor swaying back and forth on his heels as Ford stretched behind him reaching for his clothes which hung out on the nightstand alongside his glasses. It was early morning, around 9 am from what Ford could tell. A reasonable hour to wake considering the length of their last talk.

“So how did you do it? Leading the hide behind into my house was surely a tremendous feat! I've been trying to find it for months and yet-”

 

Smirking up at him, Bill twisted his black cane around his finger like it was a baton as he spoke, “You flatter me too much Ford. With my kind of increasing power that wasn’t so hard to do. I just had to make a deal. Like the one I made with you.”

 

“Oh, I see. So you can posses individuals of all species? Now that I say that aloud it does seem kind of obvious, as you well- Were... different species.”

 

Somehow, Bill seemed pierced by that as if it distanced him greatly from Ford by some sleight of hand. But his expression was unreadable through his body and was quickly retorted with an upbeat response and smirking glare. 

 

“Did you just assume my species, Ford? But yeah I get ya. Our minds are both very egocentric because of our cultures, it's hard to step out of that plane, but when you do Ford it's amazing.”

 

“Well, you'll have to show me one day if it's that incredible.”

 

Bill lit in a charming manner once more in an authentic smile before zipping over towards Ford.

 

“Why not today then? I need to take you to explore some things anyway.”

 

“Oh, absolutely just let me change out of these clothes.”

 

With a nod, Bill flipped around letting Ford stray from the bed and into the bathroom to get ready for the rest of the day as he wandered elsewhere in the frozen time space. He found himself drifting into the different rooms through the walls which he passed through gently like a ghost. When he reached the study he paused a moment, looking towards a small rock that had been brought to hold down a few papers. It had been the object of his agreement with the hide behind, for it was the beasts egg. 

 

Quickly he lifted the youngling off the desk with his magic, porting it towards another location where it could rest and grow on its own. More power. He felt more power seep into his hands which erupted in hotter brighter blue fire that he extinguished by curling his fingers in session into his palms. It burnt him, despite the fact that his arms were merely projections it still hurt in a wonderful way that made him feel apart of this world. He hadn’t felt apart of a real world in a long time.

 

After what Bill felt to be long enough allotment of time had passed, he crept back through the hallways to meet Ford again in his room. When he arrived in the room he heard Ford shuffling a travel pack onto his back, his bright red turtleneck sweater tucked under his khaki jacket which matched the colour of his hiking shoes. 

 

“Adventure is out there huh Fordsy?”

 

“I know don't that reference Bill, but the intention is nice.”

 

Ford laughed wholeheartedly throwing back his head as he laughed, and Bill felt heat rush to his face as he rocked onto his heels, fingers jittering about the curve of his cane. He was humbled by the kindness of that soft laughter which rang in his head and sprung an almost drunken joy into his heart. 

 

“Come on Fordsy. We have a busy day ahead of ourselves. There are many things you have yet to see.”

 

Lifting his cane up Bill twirled around on his heel striding a wide stride as he tilted his top hat back with each set humming that old frog song, “ _ hello my baby, hello my honey,” _ as he slid from the room into the hallway. His eyes caught onto another figure shifting about in the room across the hall as he continued his march and kickline. His humor faded quickly , the reality of another person being present in the house had killed it and as his feet hit the ground to end his kickline his cane pinned itself on the floor with fingers folded to rest on top of it in an iron grip.

 

But he couldn't remain still, his twitch had escalated with his newly completed deal and gained power. He gripped further on his cane, stilling the shaking or at least covering it up as he heared Ford’s clicking steps behind him. He found himself a bit upset, he was no longer the sole intellectual connection that Ford physically had in this forested hick town. It would make him harder to convince now that he felt apart of this world. Though he toiled through this rationale as a means to explain away his feelings of discomfort with this stranger, he knew that somewhere caught in his chest was the true cause that coiled his heart like a leech and jaded his perception of this person was the fact that they were just like him. A rat could smell another rat after all, and through Noams inspiring facade and inspirational stature the smell of a liar seeped through his polished coat. 

 

“I don’t like him,”

 

The words hung in the air heavy and fearful, and were only interrupted when Bill shuffled his head onto his shoulder. He felt a hand begin to drift down onto his back to comfort him and redirect his position, but quickly strode away from it, his cane clicking the ground quickly in a 4/4th beat with his legs. He didn’t need this right now, he needed to play this off. 

 

He looked back at Ford with a soft smile his hands up at his shoulders in a shrug. 

 

“Nope. Not a fan of brunettes.”

 

Ford looked at him wanting to talk with him, to actually talk with him. He wasn't blind after all, he could tell that his muse had clearly read more into something then he had, but he wanted them to get along nonetheless. These were two very important people in his life after all. Yet he didn’t have the courage to ask, it had not built up within him yet, and so instead he found himself biting his lip and ruffling his own brunette hair as the comment sunk in.

 

Was he not a fan of Ford as well?

 

Seeing this Bill strode over to him peeking closer to his face so that their noses almost touched. 

 

“I am a fan of salt and pepper, though.”

 

He reached out to tussle Ford’s greying strands but his hand instead slipped through his more solid form ruining the motion that served as recovery from him previous notion, but only slightly. Ford watched as his muses hand slipped through him leaving him chilled sightly where he had been passed through. Unconsciously, he caught Bill's hand as it fell past his side on its journey back to it neutral position. It was smooth, graceful, almost as soft as a newborns - but more importantly it shook in small but vivid trembles. It quaked unsteadily, as if it was not able to be controlled as it rested upon Ford's hand. As a soft notion of good will, Ford's other hand drifted up on its own to cover Bill’s one nervous hand as Bill’s other digits gripped fiercely to his cane for stability and rejection of the sentiment.

 

“I’m glad. I wouldn’t want to be a burden on someone who I consider to be a very good friend.”

 

“I'm not a good friend Ford….

 

The truth clung to his throat, he wasn't good and abusive at best. A lier at worst. Ford made him too sentimental and his expressed this unwillingly in an expression of mixed rage toward himself and others that lasted only five seconds before vanishing into a thickened facade of humble glee.

“it’s only been three days at most.”

  
  


It was a good pick up. He didn't catch the meaning that lingered in his first sentence. 

 

How gullible.

 

“And in that time you’ve done so much for me, including presenting yourself like this.”

 

How nieve.

 

Bill felt his fingers retract slowly from Ford's protective grasp. They were friends, but he didn’t deserve that title if he was going to go through with his plan. He was no protector or delightful host, he was a thief who in the course of a few nights had peppered in enough compliments as to steal away the kings fortune without him knowing it. He didn’t take on a human form for any other reason than vanity and some shallow fading embrace of his initial reasoning behind gaining power. He was an addict to power, a vain equilateral posing as some kind of third dimensional being who cared less and less about who he was becoming as he became closer and closer to his goal. Power.

 

“It must be hard on you to considering you're all shook up like this.” 

 

How kind.

 

“No, that's for other reasons Ford.”

 

“...”

 

“I’ll tell you about that when you’re older.”

 

Bill watched as strong red and pink flush coated his new friend's cheeks, staining them a glossy red as his smile turned into a toothy uncontrollable grin and later a rolling laughter. Perhaps he had said something that was misconstrued? 

 

“Older, I’m 30 that's almost half my lifespan. Either way, I've already had the talk, though I don't-”

 

“No Ford.”

 

Bills brow fell flat, unamused at the light jest that seemed to trigger some tomfoolery within Ford who pressed onwards.

 

“What? It's not like- ”

 

“Come on we have work to do before your roomie wakes up and sees us.”

 

Chuckling, he ran out after Bill into the rolling snow just outside of the log cabin. Both striding slightly beyond the deck in front before stopping and turning to face each other. Fishing out his gloves from his pocket, Bill pulled their fine leather over his hands which extended to meet Fords.

 

“Well Fordsy, it's time we get to know each other a little better. So will you let me in?”

 

“Into…”

 

“Your body, I need to pilot it for a small amount of time.”

 

“Alright. I trust you.”

 

Reaching out to shake his hand Ford saw Bills had retracted quickly, curling up into his chest as he stepped forward. 

 

“Just like that?”

 

Ford smiled, taking his hand in his own quickly.

 

“Just like that.”

 

They shook in one singular moment, filling them both with and explosion of sensation. Their very being seemed to pull together mixing like stardust in an supernova before resonating with a sensation that felt whole, meaningful, and intense. As soon as it was gone, they wanted it back in a panicked flurry and hazy recovery. Sight was restored to them almost immediately after, but now Ford’s essence was a drift, like a spirit while his body's eyes flooded yellow before woozily tumbling down. 

 

“Woah ho ho… still not used to the two-eyed models, let alone four eyes.”

 

Bill lifted the glasses saddled on the face of the body he now controlled by their temple tip, pushing them up and down before sighing and picking himself up. He felt cold. He hadn’t realized how cold it was.

 

“You okay Ford? Feeling lighter?”

 

“That's an understatement, but yes.”

Ford tumbled through the air his mind still manifesting as the body it had controlled despite its lack of physicality. He drifted, feeling apart and whole all at once, but it was the kind of wholeness that would slip away and fade into something bigger. It was like ice sheets in a river under the cresting heat of the springtime.

 

“So strange, isn't it? When you got no strings to hold you down.”

 

Bill’s breath smoked as he talked, his eyes watched the grey world start to awaken with minor colouration.

 

“Need to leave fast, my time warps being melted through. Follow me.”

 

He tried to follow after as he watched his body stalk off towards the right side of the shack and into the forest. Ford tossed and turned, spun in all weightless directions trying, but it simply wasn't any use. It was too much of a struggle to move.

 

“Bill! Wait I don't know-”

 

“You'll learn sixer, your smart. Just focus rather than loom in fear. You have to create a structure for yourself now.”

 

He spun a few more times, fear settling in on his mind and clouding his vision, which he wasn't even sure he had to begin with. He could feel himself curling up and fragmenting, like a thought lost in time as intense questions clouded his inner dialogue. His hands pulsed digging into themselves with sharp nails, accept there was nothing to touch. Everything was blocky around him squeezing limiting but untouchable he felt like a ghost trappedwithnowaytoturnoutwithnoquestionthatcouldbesolvedhefeltanxiousnervousimpropertherewasnothinghecoulddoaboutthishowwashesupposedtobesmartwhenhecouldntfigurethisoutwasassuminghewassmartwhatkepthimalonealltheseyearsinthiscabbininthishellwhatwashe-

 

_ Hey, don't worry, wherever we go we go together. _

 

In an instant, he stopped and only wondered where that thought came from. It gave him direction and enough warmth to chase away the looming butterflies that seemed to stiffen his gut. He moved forward, things, directions, they were clear to him now. He followed after Bill’s path which had nearly been covered by the snow.

 

“Jeez sixer, you were taking so long I thought you might have fallen in.”

 

“Fallen in- oh-oh I get it. No, it's... just more difficult then you made it out to be.’

 

“Yeah, it's very tough, you're all thought up there, after all, your souls still tucked away in here.”

 

He motioned towards Ford's body with a jab of the thumb. Before staring off into a large pit to his left. He removed the pack that Ford had adorned himself with and rested it on the ground. He looked around in it after lifting the cover, fishing out Ford's books and a few ballpoint pens and pocketing them.

 

“Oh are we going in there, there's a rope line in my p-”

 

“Ropes? Where we're going we don't need ropes!”

 

Bill clenched his fists backing up to make a running start to his cannonball, to dive into the blackness. He watched Ford hastily rush to stop him through his yellow slotted eyes, but it wouldn’t make a difference, he was going to dive anyway. He dashed forth past Ford and to the edge of the pit where he stopped on his heel and laughed like an ornery little boy.

 

“OH THANK TH-”

 

Bill tisked at Ford's relief as he stood still at the edge with a large Cheshire grin on his face before trust-falling into the void. Ford raced after him, fear flooding all of his being causing him to speed faster and faster into the void until he caught up with his body and Bill.

 

Bill had it sprawled out, his fingers open alongside his body like a paratrooper as he felt the cold wind whip Ford's face. The glasses drifted slightly off of his serene face to which he responded by pushing them down into place and holding them there. He shot a look towards Ford, a smart alec look which read off seemingly  _ do you really think I would ever hurt you? _

 

“You scared the hell out of me, why didn't you just explain what you were doing-”

 

“You and I both know you wouldn't take that risk. So I took it for you. Here try it out.”

 

He jumped from Ford's body, pushing Ford back into it as they free-fell lower and lower into this endless pit. 

 

He screamed, he screamed like a regretful child on a rollercoaster as the wind lashed out against is rapidly spasming limbs which broke from the controlled fall Bill had established for him. He spun wildly about in the air as he fell deeper and deeper. His heart bounded, his mind raced, fear clung to his very being until eventually, he got bored of all of that.

“It… it doesn't stop does it?”

 

He felt Bill’s presence float closer to him and saw him floating in his preferairy vision. He had a smile about him, even in his triangular form which he had now resumed and aimed to keep a closer eye on keeping up.

 

“I wouldn’t say that Fordys. All things have to stop. So why wouldn't this one?”

 

“Speaking of stop. How do I stop spinning, I'm getting sick to my stomach…” 

 

He could feel his stomach lurch as he spoke and instinctively curled around it which made him spin faster.

 

“Obviously don't do that.”

 

“Ughhh….”

Ford's eyes rolled back in his head as is impatience and ill temper grew, he reached out and took Bills hand as he drifted by, shaking it firmly to Bill's surprise. 

 

They traded places in an instant, and immediately Bill uncurled Ford's body like a starfish and resumed his fall like a professional paratrooper. Eventually, he stopped spinning and shot a sour look at Ford.

 

“Don’t you want to learn anything about this place, Ford?!”

 

“I- “

 

“The best lessons are learned through experiencing, through feeling everything and reflecting on it later. No matter how hard it is. No matter the pain. Stop getting caught up in your own thoughts, they get lonely after a while.” 

 

That bothered Ford, feeling out the ideas. He knew how to do it, it just seemed so long ago that this advice had been given to him by another person, a person he could not understand, one that he had grown so distant from.

 

“Trust me, I know.”

 

He extended his hand gracefully to Ford who hesitated. This seemed so much to ask of him and for a fraction of a second, the weight of the situation settled on his shoulders. It was like if a decision made now would send him on some foreseeably different and astonishing track then inaction would. He felt accepting of the tension. And he grabbed on willingly, opening his eyes to the joy in understanding things first hand.

 

<()>

 

From that moment on, it was danger. Exploration came naturally and Bill wandered in and out of Ford's mind with new information regularly through meditation. The season had shifted to spring and in that time Noam and Ford had scoped through and documented half the cryptids out there.

 

“Happy Half Day Ford!”

 

Noam peaked open the door, tumbling into the room with the store boughts and a few extra celebratory items.

 

“Half day?”

 

“You read the numbers yesterday, we have almost half the data for your hypothesis outlined and sampled. And at that, I decree that we have something to celebrate. So why not celebrate like the scots?”

 

He plunked the bags on the table pulling out a large bottle of champagne. 

 

“I guess it is something to celebrate huh.”

Ford smiled watching his colleague’s bright smile trail up from his crisp white teeth to his eyes which drew laugh lines in strong arcs from his closed lids. Noam clenched his hands upon the corkscrew he dug out from the drawer as Ford himself lurched up from his leather chair to pull down a few glasses he had kept from his college graduation ceremony. 

 

He cracked open the champagne which spilled its froth over the bottle neck and onto the tile floor in a small puddle.

 

“Hurry Ford or there won't be much left for you.”

 

He tilted the bottle just as the glasses were giddily brought to it. They were filled quickly and the bottle set to rest on the table. Glasses were handed off, and with smiles toasted together under the warm evening night as they drifted the seat themselves on the scratched to shit couch they had placed just outside the wooden shack.

 

“To research in progress.”

 

“To our friendship, and all the rest we've made.”

 

“So just this one?”

 

They laughed into the night as they rested down on the couch with glasses in hand. They clinked them together spilling some haphazardly on the ruined upholstery. 

 

“So any plans for tonight Noam?”

 

“Other than to finish all of that very expensive bottle, No. You don't either.”

 

“You know me too well.”

 

Just as they relaxed, they heard the sky erupt with crackling lights and thunderous sparklers. Fireworks hung in the sky over the snow shedding valley illuminating the gaps in the two peaks that overshot the whole view of it. In the background of the house, the grandfather clock chimed its heavy ring broadening the smiles each man wore until they stretched from ear to ear.

 

“It's the first.”

 

“I can't believe we forgot.”

 

“Ha, who said I forgot.”

 

They snickered into the night pulling out their radio to celebrate as the town down the road roared with parties and celebrations that illuminated the night. As the hours passed the bottle drained lower and lower inciting small spiteful antics and daring conversations between the two which were unknowingly gazed upon by entities beyond their sight and vision. Bill was amongst those beings, though was the lowest overseer who drifted in the shadows, jealous but reserved.

 

“You know Noam, those mountains. The ones out of town by the-

 

“Alien crash site?”

 

Sarcasm loomed charmingly in his voice making Ford throw his head back as his hands flapped out as if to push away the joking stab Noam had made.

“Here me out, I wonder if there is a site out there.”

 

“Well, what is that, an hour hike away? why not?”

 

“Its, two in the morning.”

 

“Let's go, not like you and I didn’t do this in college.”

 

Ford ruffled his hair. He actually hadn’t done anything more than study at college. He played it off with a laugh, but he wasn't good at lying.

 

“Oh, well let's make up for lost time then. Come on, you want to prove me wrong don't you?”

 

“Ha stop the peer pressure, I'm moving I'm moving.”

 

“Surrendering so easily Ford, why I love ya.”

 

The word love sent a warm lofted feeling into both their chest. Yes. This is what it was, this comfort. It was a love to be around each other, it was a good and solidified familial bond. It couldn't be anything more after all.

 

“Let's get packed then Sparks, come on you motivated me this far carry through.”

 

He tugged him up from the couch, buzzed and swirling in joy that carried around them as they clambered to get their hiking packs and abscond into the night. Walking out to their car they tumbled through the tall grasses, left over crap snow and branches which had built up during the now fading winter which didn't last nearly as long in this town. Perhaps another quality of its weirdness.

 

After buckling up, though he had been reminded to do so by Ford who was insistent on following the new seatbelt law, Noam took the wheel and started on the long and tipsy drive down the main road. He tried to stay in the lines as best he could, sensing not only his friends anxious thoughts on driving while under the influence, but the greater presence of cops on the roadways that due to that night. It was new year's after all, and their poor planning was well… Poor of course.

 

They rounded the bend and clicked on the music to _ Jump, come on and jump _ ! 

 

“Turn this one up, I love this one.”

 

“Really, you're into this pop drivel.”

 

“I got into it okay. Resound your judgements Ford you might just end up loving this song too.”

 

“He rolled it up blasting the song as he drove tensely into the night and down the winding streets. He passed the welcome to town sign at a roaring speed of 30mph in a 25 zone and saw the lights flicker on in his mirror as a cop pulled up from her hiding place behind it. Angrily, Sparks pulled over and waited as the lady cop pulled herself out of her car and skip-walked to the car door tapping her pen on the window. They rolled it down after collecting themselves.

 

“Hello, Officer..”

 

“Officer Blubs, and hello. So let's cut to the chase here now. You’ve been having any drinks tonight?”

 

“You know honesty is the best policy, yeah. We've had a bit to drink.”

 

“Well I didn’t pull you over for that, actually pulled you over cuz you tail light is out.”

 

“Oh.”

 

She chuckled happily.

 

“No I can understand, though, it's New Years your two young bucks out on the night.”

 

“Wouldn't calls 30 young.” 

 

“And I wouldn't say you look 30. But either way, were are you two off to?”

 

“Just up the hill where the cliffs are, going to check things out.”

 

She smirked looking at them up and down before backing up and placing her hand under her chin as if to take it all in before smiling something fierce as she pulled back to the window.

 

“Ha check things out, more like check each other out if I'm getting this right, ha. Good to know my sons not too alone in all that stuff. Well, you two have fun tonight, be safe and play it safe.”

 

The woman's grateful grin retracted from the car door as she waved goodbye and watched the two drive off into the night.

A stillness fell upon the car as  _ Jump _ was turned off along with other things. Surely no one loved the song now, but that wasn’t as important as the confusion the hung in Noam's mind.

 

“What was that all about.”

 

Ford shrank visibly, his head pressing itself against the cool glass.

 

“Wasn’t about you Noam, her son's gay.”

 

“Wait really?”

 

He seemed to light up. He popped up his head turning to Ford to pry out more information before his eyes lurched back at the road.

 

“Yeah, the town's very supportive of it. It's not talked about a lot though so I guess she's just happy when there's reason to suspect there someone out there who her son can identify with. Just one more anomaly on the list huh.”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“I mean towns aren't usually supportive, especially where I came from back east.”

 

“Well, that's terrible. They should be supportive of people no matter what they think. It's the only way to progress after all. You have to feel things out in order to really learn, just shutting things out produces ignorance.”

 

Ford perked up, having listened to those words before, but from someplace else.

 

“I suppose so…”

 

They drove up the long hill and parked in a lot at its top where the sign  _ Lover Leaps _ was displayed overhead. It sent both men snickering, no wonder she had thought that they were.

 

“So are you?”

 

“What?”

 

Ford looked over at him quizzically. Their eyes met directly and it seemed like for the first time Noam seemed unconfident in asking this question. His head was cocked his jaw was clenched and his eyes stared onward as it waiting to shift away from him in a moment of disagreement.

 

“I mean I don't want to imply anything, but I'm just wondering.”

 

“I don't really know. Suppose I haven’t really thought about it.”

 

“You haven't thought about it.”

 

He smiled looking at Ford ridiculously trying to hold back his laughter. 

 

“As if it’s something to think on. Ford, you’d know it if you were.”

 

“How do you know?”

 

“I'm very sure you're smart enough to figure it out.”

 

Noam unlocked the car door pulling out of it after unbuckling with a giddy smile on his face that seemed to tease Ford who now was the one staring onward. He looked back in the same way the officer had, he was somehow happy this was the case. 

There were more people like him. And it was something that practically enraged Bill who hid behind the sign steaming. That snake was flirting, it wasn't really flirting but it was still getting more personal with someone who was off limits in all ways. This snake, Noam, was playing around merely trying to cut himself out a piece of Ford's research rewards at the end of the day, which was awfully similar to what Bill was doing-

 

Bill stopped himself there, calming himself down. Gods, he was too attached to this one. Perhaps it was because he knew that Ford would succeed. In some small way, he knew it. He turned back watching Ford and this Sparks guy leave and roll into the winding hills just beyond the lot. 

 

They walked until four, finding themselves lost amongst the night, tired, and coming off of their buzz. Striding forth without words they reached the top of the hill which overhead displayed a wind view of the city, and dashing view of the rock structures. Stumbling over the roots just before the clearing Ford stopped to look up at the drifting night sky above him. 

 

“You can see the milky way. Look.”

 

Noam turned his head up, standing firmly on the ground letting the wind quake over him and his eyes reflect the stars. This was nice, he had shared something with someone that he had longed to get off his chest. He felt satisfied, more over, he was sure in some way that Ford felt Sparks for him. Ha, he was punny in his own mind at least. It was his way in, Ford's research was disproving too many stable theories after all. It was impractical in this way despites its intentions and data. He just couldn't fathom it, and perhaps by forging something stronger with Ford he could get him to see the error of his ways. But that was beyond this moment. He wanted to live and experience now. 

 

Noam opened his arms wide letting the world hit him with its beauty as he walked forward with pointed toe out like a ballerina. He shook his head as if to shake off the dust of the night and enjoy the now, lifting his chin to the sky to admit a sigh of the same value. Ford followed after him his hand outstretched to meet his shoulder before he tripped and fell at Noams feet.

 

His bag it him harshly from behind and he pulled himself up barley after, looking at what tripped him.

 

A hatch. The Hatch to the ship which he had known to rest here, but hadn't found before this night. There it was. He scrambled to find a way to unlock it as his friend snapped from his trance after hearing the sounds of clanking metal.

 

“You ready to eat those words of yours Sparks.”

 

“No,  but let me at it that looks heavy.”

 

Together they lifted the large metal plate from its slot and gathering their courage looked down to see a set of hand rails where they could escape down into.

 

“Extraterrestrial life confirmed.”

 

“Let's go”

 

“What?”

 

“Remember what I said, something about living the science. Let's go unless your G-g-gallus gallus domesticus?”

 

“I'm not a chicken stop goating me on”

 

“Goading Ford.”

 

“That's what I meant.”

 

“Well no use being scared, come on.”

 

Grabbing the handrails Noam quickly shot down the stairs leaving Ford alone. For once he felt the eyes on his back that he had thought had merely been Noams all night. He wanted to call out to them, to see if anything arose before he heard his friend call up to him from below and reached out to the rails with swirling stomach to follow after.

 

<()>

 

The hull of the ship was immense, barren, and overgrown with moss and vegetation of alien origin that nonetheless flourished in their bioluminescent splendor. The writing scattered all over was alien to their eyes, but to their triangular protector who loomed just out of sight these, markings were no foreign language, and merely common tongue. 

 

They trailed past long walkways darkened rooms and flickering panels, all the while careful of each and every step they took.

 

“It's probably ancient, probably Formed the town.”

 

“And more over it will probably get us in a lot of trouble with our government and everyone else's.”

 

“You're right, we shouldn't be here.”

 

“No no, there's no use in not seeing it for ourselves, after all, we actually found something here.”

 

“So sightseeing?”

 

“Yea-”

 

A loud noise carried from behind them, it shook their skin which blistered in chills and sent their heartbeats into a flurry. Beeping sounded through the haul of the ship carrying around the atmosphere like a siren which lay undetectable in origin by their ears. They clung to the walls before it stopped, and then in the silence they pressed on rationalizing off the sound as- 

 

“Probably some alarm that's useless now.”

 

Puffing out a small curtain of cloudy air Noam responded a faint yes, before continuing on

“We should see if there's a consul, maybe even snap some pictures of this place to send to translators.”

 

“Fiddleford would love to crack out this code that's for sure.”

 

They stopped at a wall with thickly scrawled and scattered lettering that looked like it had been written in a rush. The hand was shaken, even with laser precision and exactness to all characters they all seemed equally fearful.

 

“I wonder what this place carried.”

 

“Said by every person before you see the monster in the horror movie. Don't get us ironically killed, Ford.”

 

“Not calming my nerves here, Noam.”

 

“We should head back then. “

 

“Agreed.”

 

They turned around quickly minding their steps again as they rounded corner, after corner, after corner. They were agreeably lost, and began to look for a map as they wandered. Everywhere had to have a map after all. Didn't it? It seemed hopeless, and in the back of their minds the beeping continued until they reached a completely dark hallway whose light was directly at the end of its long stretch. 

 

It was the only place left to go, though the sounds of creaking metal seemed to increase the tension in the air as they pandered to the edge of their current strip of light. Stillness. It was a stillness and wonderful fear that creeped into them instilling false confidence that pushed them toe by toe to leave their light.

Toe by toe into the shadows.

Toe by toe to the other side.

  
  


At the sound of falling metal Ford felt Noam grab his hand and dash toward the other side of the light where he quickly reached the wall with his other outstretched hand and pressed against it as it were home base in freeze tag. As if he would be safe there.

 

His eyes bulged, his heart raced, and his heart slipped as he folded himself like a small child into his chest with relief. Ford smiled, placing a hand on Noams wall bound shoulder to calm himself before he heard Noam’s soft crying.

 

“God… I've never been so foolishly scared of the shadows. I'm sorry to string you along like this.”

 

“We need to get out of here, and doing that will take a clear mind. Just. Think of a phrase… something to ground you…”

 

He panted, tired from running as he sloped to the ground like a wilting flower.

 

“What do you think of?”

 

“I think of something my brother said.” 

 

He had admitted it now. He was still attached to Stanley, despite everything he was still reliant on someone so selfish. Some one who calmed him.

 

_ Hey, don't worry, wherever we go we go together. _

 

Someone who had lied to him, which was evident now as he felt more lost than ever despite the repetition of that small phrase in his mind.

 

“Alright. I'm an only child…”

His dark eyes looked up at Ford and with a deep breath, he stood again.

“Okay, I have it.”

 

They walked again, endlessly onward into the depths which now rolled in their broken nature towards infinite multitudes of channels and passageways. No longer in fear, they were in drudgery which pandered. Down one hatch, they decided, was the best way to reach the bottom which was sure to be the hull of the craft and possibly contained a map. They passed over the grating pulling it up only to trip another meaningless alarm which sent them scurrying into the passage like rats. They emerged out the other side, finding themselves to be within the central piloting room.

 

There were no chairs, standing stations only aligned the room indicating the speed of the craft to be something of a convenience. The panels despite their overgrowth still were glowing, with small red dots trailing across the screen of a map, and larger more sturdy bluer dots following after them. 

 

“Well we got our map. Let's take a picture huh.”

 

Noam whipped out his camera, lining up the photo to the map before pressing down on the button. The flash blinded them both, their eyes had adjusted to the darkness after all, and their world swirled in colour for a few moments before they settled again.

 

With the printed map in hand, they looked to pinpoint where they were.

 

“We’re the red dots. They stopped moving when we go in here so we're actually very close to another exit hole. Lucky this map marks hull breaches.”

 

“Indeed, but if were red what are the blue dots.”

 

“Things to avoid probably. Wish we could take this map to go. But it looks like we'll have to be careful.”

 

They looked back at the active map finding the dots to be just around the corner. Their eyes widened and quickly they dashed towards a hiding place behind a vent. They once more heard the loud beeping enter the room, and this time the sound of scanning premiated the metal walls with green light. It beeped twice and the pod immediately zipped over to just behind their location. 

 

The sound of charging made their blood run cold, and they looked at each other to think of a quick plan before their capture and demise.

 

“Left”

 

“Right”

 

“Break”

 

They dashed out from behind the beam as it dematerialized under the green light of the sphere which scanned them quickly before responding to them in a robotic english tone.

 

“IDENTIFICATION REQUIRED,  SUBMIT IDENTIFICATION”

 

Knowing they hadn't any made them run quicker, but Noam chose to run left instead of right, and as he ran his feet carried him until he reached a dead end. The Sphere followed its pursuit of him avidly demanding once more

 

“IDENTIFICATION REQUIRED,  SUBMIT IDENTIFICATION”

 

But he had none. 

 

And it knew it.

 

“EXTERMINATE!”

 

It flashed its lights at him sending his head to cock left and his fist to clench as his toes curled in his shoes as if ready to fight. But he lacked the confidence, nor the skill, that boiled in his blood and sent into cramped compulsions and thickened laboured breaths.

 

He wasn't prepared to die, but he wasn’t able to fight for his life either. He closed his eyes waiting for the end to hit him, to take him into the swirling blackness of nothing in where all atheist reside. Into the absolution that can only be represented by 0, inactions, and infinity.

 

“Well isn't someone in a pick-le.”

 

The voice he heard was chipper, like a gentleman, and as he opened his eyes low and behold that is what he saw amongst the grey frozen time around himself. He saw the all seeing eye personified into a human being whose brow furrowed heavily on his face, was this lucifer? Come to take him to hell for his retribution of god? Or perhaps an angel, but how was he deserving of that if it was?

 

“Sparks right?”

 

“W-who”

 

“Sorry sweety it's rude to gock, but I’ll let it slide as this form is fabulous!”

 

Bill extended his hand as if pleading for a ring to the sky and he tipped forward with his chin to his cane to rest upon the hand that had covered its curved hook. He smirked though his heterochromatic eyes.

 

“Form so, wait you're that- Bill. but this form. What do you mean by that? How are you here?”

 

“Magic!.”

 

Bill jumped up with his one leg in a soft skip behind the other and his hands bent at the elbows with palms up like some anime character.

 

He dropped this act immediately, his face falling into a disgruntled scowl as he looked over Noam before resuming his triangular shape to his horror.

 

“Well either way, you're looking for a way out aren't you. So, why not make a deal with all o this?

 

“With a dorito?”

 

“What is with you people and doritos. You and tumblr need to seriously like some other kind of chip.”

 

“Tumblr?”

 

“You'll never use it, that's for sure. So you want to get out of here alive huh.” 

 

“You can do that?’

 

“For a cost.”

 

“What's the cost?”

 

“Is your life worth the cost?”

 

“Yes”

 

“Then why do you need to know?”

 

He nodded quickly his heart still a mess at the fear that had flooded his system before he looked to Bill with confidence. Bill gazed back behind his hooded lid, slipping his hand out from its folded position over his cane to shake. 

 

“Well, shake it up baby.”

 

As as they shook Bill's eyes opened behind Noams, possessing him without removing him from his body. Time picked up again around them and the sphere in front of them scanned them once more spotting their location. 

 

Bill calmed their body immediately, grounding his legs in a firm stance as he shot glares that could destroy any living being it came into contact with. Be breathed out stiffly, hair picking up in a wind that was self created as he channeled fire into his palms and shot out against the machine in a dazzling show of force. 

 

As it melted, he rushed past it quickly, pushing Noam’s body until pain settled in a burned his very being. But he remained running, unfeeling as he rounded the corners with intention trying to find Ford once again. He had been in danger when he left him, and he was not about to let him go unaided, even if he had to save Noam to do it.

 

Hearing Ford’s scream carrying through the hallway, he darted in that direction, burning Noam’s hands as he intensified his flame. Down the long hallway he began to see Ford strung out under some shifter of shape which seemed starved and gaunt enough to want to consume a human despite their poor meat quality.

 

“Hey good looking.”

 

The creature turned to look at Noam and Bill who stood their in the same form with the confidence and defense of some wild mother bear. He lifted his flaming hand pointing it at the creature like a loaded glock.

 

“Yall ready for this?”

 

He quickly pulled back his hand shooting off an precise ray of blue flame that shot at the creature's shoulder causing it to shriek and flail backwards as the red streams of its arteries sprayed about the room before skin sought to seal them again. He ran closer, placing himself between Ford and the creature as he circled it like a tiger in hunt.

 

“Get up the hatch Ford, it's right over there.”

 

“B-”

 

“You’ve gotten yourselves into enough trouble tonight, you're lucky I saw this timeline or you'd be in pieces right now.” 

 

With that being said Ford pulled away, knowing he wasn't strong enough to do this. Knowing he was a fool for not taking precautions. Knowing he was causing those he cared for to become threatened. As he reached the top he sat there along for what seemed to be an eternity. The sun warmed his back, but tears flooded from his eyes despite it.

 

He looked up slowly as he heared the clicking of shoes against the metal rungs. He dashed towards them pulling up Noam from the hole, seeing the thick heat welts on his hand, his cut lip, and his glowing eyes. He knew that despite it all, Bill felt the pain this body wore too. With a sputtering cough Bill began to focus on Ford's eyes again.

 

“This body… is a wreck For-”

 

Bill stopped seeing him crying, it hit something in him. The tears fell on his cheek and for once he felt them, he really felt that this skin was his own. That it was reacting in the same way he was. How? This feeling. This feeling would eat him up with guilt and send him skyrocketing. 

 

Love, not just physical or mental, but love on a spiritual level. He found someone. Someone just like how he was before all this. It was beautiful to see it. Someone who could see another dimension in something so plain. Was this how the other demons felt when they looked at Bill all those years ago?

 

“Hey.”

 

“H-hey.”

 

They smiled together before Bill felt himself slipping from his body. They had accomplished their deal, and his body was weakened.

 

“You got to get him to the hospital. I burned him out badly.”

 

Ford nodded stiffly as Bill shuffled closer to his heart trying to calm him until he went limp and was expelled. 

 

<()>

 

In seconds Ford was gone with Noam, confused and stricken as he rushed to the hospital. Bill waited on the hill, staring simply at his hands. They were burnt too. They were burnt like an arsons. This time he had started the fire. 

 

His gaze shifted back to the duct on top of the hill which remained opened and clicked with weight as something from below ventured upwards. When it reached to top, its fingers dug into the ground like a wraith, scrawling itself up onto the grassy lawn where Bill rested, its body leaching out the last of its life as its eyes glassed over.

 

Bill smiled.

  
Maybe, just maybe… there was another deal to make.


	5. Ignition

**_You may think this world is a dream come true, but you're wrong. ~ Coraline_ **

 

It had been a long week, and if he dare to think longer on it he would have realized it to have been a long month as well since he had made the long trek home. It didn’t much feel like home though, Bill thought shuddering at the idea of his true home as he clenched his hands at his sides feeling the sting of the flames and the shake of his twitching tremors. 

Being in open territory did not help as the ever present eyes which had watched Ford proceeded to loom over his shoulders now with vicious malice and cannibalistic hunger which would curdle blood from their lips and down their necks had they any such extremities. They were hungry for conversation and Bill knew all too well it wasn't the friendly banter he had teased at with Ford. This was structured and swave talk which was only to pepper up the individual until their motivations and thoughts were consumed by the intention of that lone persuader.

He passed through town quickly, looking for someone, anyone who was dreaming lucidly. They would serve as a punched hole through this human world into his own nightmarish hell built on the remains of what was his home.

He found one and rushed towards it quickly, around the bend he flew. He darted through the cold grey thickened night air, streaming through the buildings and homes until he reached the house were the dreamer lay. Cutting the tension in the air he slipped into the blue fence picketed american  dream home, through the walls and rafters, until at last his eyes fell upon the sleeping young couple. They were possibly the most pale and prim examples of cultural disassociation he had ever seen. They reminded him of home through their rigidity, their lack of character, but something angry rested upon his mind as he looked over both of them. They felt all too familiar in energy to the person he dare not mention as he slipped away back into his own world through the dream of the man. He sighed, pacing through the mind of the self proclaimed used car salesmen. 

Gleeful, the mention of this humans name cast a harsh frown upon Bill’s face. It made him feel out of character. Real almost. And it was a feeling that forced him to attune to his sins before he could again block it out.

Tonight had been good, he had felt real but unweighted by the fact that he was an arson. That he choose to aim his aggressions out onto his own dimension. But that wasn’t the whole story. He wasn't about to go into the whole story with eyes upon him and his new family so close.

He reached his realm after parting through the surprisingly organized mind of the stagnant individual. He looked up at his blackened sky, even now it smelled of fire. It smelled the same as the day it had been ignited.

He felt something slip down his face, rolling past the brick like area of his body as it did. It was wet, hot, and stung his hand when he reached for what would be his chest. He was crying, without sobs or h-hitching of breath. He stood there outside of his consequential world, letting the sadness roll over him in waves and fits, unattended and sludging its way through his heart in fragmented bouts of connection and detachment.

He pulled his water line down in loathing, knowing that he shouldn't cry, not now.

It wasn't professional.

Tisk tisk he could hear his mother say in that tone of chipper- no. He wasn't going to think of that.

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you have second thoughts about all of this.”

“Continue that sentence Kryptos. I dare you.”

“Still so proper Bill. Not a swear word in any verbalization of your atomicity. You are a well bred shape to say the least, which in your case would also be the most I could say.”

His laughter followed his words in a stuck up  _ choo choo _ like way as the black rhombus lifted his arm and strung it over Bill with small, almost brotherly satisfaction. He sighed before looking over at Bill, unemotionally as always, but in a way that saddled him as looking contempt. 

“Still keeping with traditions because you miss their direction. I don't put it past you, three siders tend to feel that way. Unyielding in their discipline, unknowing of how little it matters.”

“Haha… I don't need to hear about your angleist pity right now you goddamn trapezoid. I don't miss it, those people were awful.”

“Calling me irregular serves no point Bill. It won't stiffen your desires to undo what mind over morals decision you cast upon them. And though you might not miss their strict nature, their lack of thought and suppression of expression,oh how fun it was to hear their ending cries drift like music over the skies of pitch black and blue. Their screams in the back alley during that moonlight hour, to feel their blood and more over see their bodies spasm in colour when our angles split our fellow shapes in half, that is if I shall confuse your crimes with my own.”

Spoken like a true ego stricken sociopath, Kryptos goated continuously about how much he missed the minor murdering and destruction he had committed before the destructions of their realm. He wasn't into the killing for the power that came at the expense of each life dealt with, merely the thrill of those few seconds where he could watch a being's whole life and potential flood from them. It was beauty to him. It was a disgusting concept to Bill, which wasn't attended to by Kryptos’ angleist comments. He sighed, gripping his companion by the corners in a death grip that harkened to his own mothers.

“Have I ever told you how much you talk Krypty?”

Pulling back, Kryptos rolled his eye back puffing out his angular chest to display his depth, a trait gained through his powers. A trade made for vanity and stature. How square of him.

“Countless times, I never listen beyond that comment though…. It's okay to miss them. Each life is beautiful after all. I can't imagine how much of a thrill you experienced outsing them all in one shot. It must have carried like a symphony across the heavens, with the downfall akin to the falling of its highest and most faithful of angels. ”

“I didn't oust them. You know who it was-”

“I know how Astar Tisk gave you the choice to put your money where your mouth was. And how instead you put your foot in your mouth.”

Bill looked down, glaring harshly at the slick black figure who scooped his face in a brother like manner to dab the dried tear tracks away with his handkerchief. But he was no brother, or at least no replacement for one.

“Shut up.”

A long and daunting moment of silence passed between the two as the smell of smoldering wrapped around them, setting the scene for them even as they blinked. It was as if they were there, as they had been not too long ago. Not even Kryptos could understand what led to Bills decision, the war, the rules, the abuse, the pressure, it was unfathomable to him. But what made the most sense was the actions that followed, they were actions he had seen and experienced, enough to know in that moment that it needed to be redirected. To aid both of them it was in that moment many years ago that they had made a pact. So far, they had both held up their obligations despite their distance from each other. Bill would work, and Kryptos would make sure he could by pushing their adversaries into the dark. Together they worked in mutual hatred, Bill after all had taken away Kryptos’ toys, their people, but those thoughts passed over the shape quickly before he interrupted the quiet and commanded the conversation yet again.

“You're going forth with the plan still correct? You're going to sacrifice that much to get them all back. Flaws and all. You'll gain enough attachment to have some fool build a portal to their dimension and gain enough power to match that of the the gods themselves, take out the big guns, then reset the world in your own making. ”

“...of course… I have to… whatever the cost.”

“Well, I'm intrigued that you're still determined. Oh here.’

He reached around pulling something out of his pocket void, watching Bill wait tentatively like a child would. He lifted the string of pearly white objects from his void, tossing them off to Bill who caught them suspiciously.

“Deer teeth, for you.”

“Why?”

“To lighten the mood. Either way, you're getting too attached. It should do you well to quicken your pace of action.”

“I'm not getting to att-”

“Recall the last deal you made then, what was it for?”

“I…”

There was a long pause yet again, as Kryptos decided to go looking for the answers for himself by sensing the new power that coursed through Bill’s being.

“Oh you made one beyond the one with the human… one for- oh my, that's juicy.”

He snickered again, casting of his  _ choo choo _ sounds as he watched the yellow shape turn a brilliant bright red as is twitchy fingers raised to cast off the colour through their stunted pressure applica. After such a display, Kryptos fell into more laughter.

“Let those teeth be a reminder to you that if I see you hesitating, I’ll be sure to yank a few of your new inventors teeth out.”

“No!”

Kryptos pulled back, for once feeling the strength and power Bill had grown to possess now, at its full awakened force. Words pulled loosely from Kryptos’ lips as he stood there in utter amazement at the shape who stood there red in his assertion. He had felt this in Bill, but the confirmation of care directed toward someone at this level was fascinating and sent chills to the man's planes.

“So attached… this one has charmed you… but you're overestimating this attachment Bill. Love has many different levels that the inexperienced don't understand after all, but oh how this will be rich to watch.”

“You don't know how hard this is for me. So stop poking fun at me or I’ll knock a pyronica sized gap in your teeth.”

And that’s what he did anyway, without hesitation thereafter. He felt his fist and all his energy strike out against the solid black plane of his companion's face in smooth succession against the air currents. It rebounded as expected, waving its motion out like waves as it sunk deeper and deeper into the flesh which chunked mildly, leaving a slip which bled black across Kryptos mouth as it cracked into a smile.

In an instant roles were reversed and Bill lay flat on his planes struggling to land solid blows as his wrists were gripped and controlled. 

“You might be becoming too powerful to intervene with the will of your lower conscious Bill. Be careful. You're growing desperate for something that simply doesn't exist. ” 

<()>

The Night had gone by rapidly within the world very distant from Bill’s. The sun crept down below the hills casting pitch blackness onto the yellow strained and crusted eyes of Ford as they folded downwards casting away a million thoughts that loomed in his head. Perhaps loneliness had made him more sentimental than logical, but driving his research assistant to the hospital and remaining with him seemed to have been a decent course of action at least.

His scowl remained as he looked over his own stitchwork and waited to hear back from the nurse about his friend's treatment. Well, as much as he was allowed to know. He wasn't family after all, so the only information he could really pull from them was if he was to be kept at the hospital overnight or not.

The door clicked open quickly and he got his answer.

“Come on Ford, it's been a long, long day. I'm sure you're tired too.”

Noams hands were thickly bandaged, alongside gashes and scratches patched with the thin metal wiring of stitches. Ford nodded staggering up quickly to the nurses behest. Check out was rapid. The walk to the car, cold and unsettling, despite the newly emerging heat brought about by the summer. 

The car ride home was filled with stagnation. And the exiting from the car door was sounded by lonely and frustrated actions. 

“I’m not mad at you by the way Ford. Just. I wish you would have told me more about your research partner.”

Ford fumbled, brushing his hair up the back with his hands feeling the small stubble of hair mixed with the stitches that stretched from his shoulder upwards. 

“I'm sorry. I shouldn't have let my fear encroach upon my actions. There's no excuse in a thing like that.”

With a sigh and adjustment of his stance Noam rolled his head to rest on his raised shoulders before jerking it along with his tired eyes in Ford direction. 

“There is excuse, don't discredit excuses they’re perfectly rational. To be honest, I wouldn't have believed you. Not like I do now.”

Ford sighed in relief, his heart had been on pins that entire time. It had swelled with confusion and stalled with fear to quiver like a harpstring, but now he was just glad to know that Noam would be staying around. More importantly it was good to have someone whom he could relate to about the strange happenings in his life.

“Thank god.”

“Ha, are you a religious man Ford.”

“At times, but I save the action of prayers for my friend Fiddleford. That devout Christian is in need of them.”

“Well, I'm not much for religion. To each their own array I guess. I’m curious though. Him being here, being here from someplace else..”

“Leads into my theory, hell it validates that anomalies, fields of behavioral energy within both flora and fauna alike are generated by weakness in dimensional fields.”

“And it disproves my own work.”

Ford paused, thinking on it in disbelief. It did disprove his theory, no it shattered it completely and replaced it with his own standing. He felt guilt swoop over him in an instant as they stood their in the fading sunset of spring light outside of the cabin. With the publishing of his theory, Ford would shatter the lifetime work of a fellow researcher that had inspired him on so many levels. He would devalue his friends work…

“I’d love to co write your paper. I assume you will be publishing by the end of all of this after all. “

“Yes! Of course Noam, that would be an honor for me actually. I'd have it no other way.”

A wicked smile cracked over Noams face as they moved forward. He had an in now. He had supplanted himself within something that would undoubtedly become the renowned proof of many other theories within the scientific community. Yet, he wouldn't just ride on the coat tails. Rather he would publish on the same thesis first, from a slightly different angle which would make it his own work. It didn't matter that he wouldn’t be able to regard it in the same depth as Ford would have, the population would eat it up no matter what. It would eat it up and place him among the greats like Darwin and Edison. 

Because he would act first upon Ford.

“Thank you Ford. Just agree to one thing for me.”

Ford's eye grew more enlightened as he looked towards Noam like a child. How gullible he was.

“Anything.”

He unlocked the door, pushing open its wooden frame for his friend who obviously couldn’t. How naive he was. 

“Just be more open with me about things. Including Bill.”

Noam pushed passed Ford, who helped him to settle onto the couch for the night as it became a struggle to climb up to his own room. How kind he was.

“Of course.”

How easily played he would be.

<()>

Summer would arrise soon, and the heat would pass over the falls as it would every time. There was something magical about summer nonetheless. The town just seemed to thrive more as children spilled out from the local schools and trailed into the pools and arcades around the area. Things happened more frequently in these glorious days of tomfoolery and mysticism that roamed around the streets peppering them with scents of comfort and diversity of culture. They were all so strange after all, so alive. Festivals, carnivals, fairs, and all the like pulled into this sleepy town baiting the people to approach them with their open arms and groveling pockets. Amongst those tents were the authentic and the liers, and by only slim chances would you be assured you were meeting the real thing.

Ford had been gathering up his groceries during the early morning as the tents for a swap meet began their setup along the stretch of main street dancing colours off their fibers and onto the sidewalk. He couldn't help but watch them, and a smile lifted from his face as he chuckled and went back to sorting through the produce. 

After checking out he strode back to the car, his eyes still catching the peaks and valleys that arose with each and every stand. He turned his head back to his friend who sat in the driver's seat pressed proper against the leather chair as he lifted himself up from it.

“Were blocked in here. They closed the road off some time ago so it looks like we won't be able to get home. “

Ford shot Noam a rolling smirk as he placed the bags down in the trunk with a subtle thud.

“Seems unlikely that they’d keep us here if we explained the situation to them.”

“I’ll try to go find someone to open it for us again. Until then, why not go check the place out.”

Ford pulled back, closing the trunk of the old car before glancing back at Noam with a laugh.

“No, no… I don't do too well with people in close quarters. Floods my mind with flashbacks of high school.”

“Couldn't have been all that bad, you must have had at least a few friends who kept your ego strong enough.”

“I suppose..”

He coughed. He had only his brother who lifted him up throughout high school, even in middle school when they were both classical geeks he had sheltered him from bullying. Before they had been separated out into the categories of wiz kid and wannabe jock they had no one but each other. He supposed that had changed. That he had changed too.

“You know what, why the heck not?”

“Well go on, you live one day at a time Ford. Come get me if you find anything interesting.”

“Can do.”

He waved farewell, and like a swan on parade glided through the small crowd that flocked to the opening gates and waved through them as if they were a shallow dam.

His eyes swirled about the long open stretch, observing all the colours and actions that filled that morning with buzz. A salesmen on his left pitched Stan Brand pitchforks as a gag prop for summerween while on his right there was a plethora of fortune telling booths and “witches” who proposed and pitched other spiritual merchandise. He was caught up in it for a while before spying just beyond their tents another.

It was smaller, crafted with holy symbols that Ford knew were authentically stitched into the somber sides of the mythical blue fabric. They seemed to be in motion, despite the fact that not even the wind seemed to move the taught fabric. The cords from other booths that swamped the ground made the way nearly impassable, but he pulled through the thin gaps in the boths, tripping over all of them to reach this lone tent. 

Noise around him seemed to fade to a hush as a soft song waifed from the lips of an old haggard woman who loomed just inside the tent. They became stonger as he tossed open the flap and stepped inside. 

“Come wayward souls, who wander through the darkness there is a light for the lost and the meek-”

“This is much larger than I thought it would be. And you've built some great ambience here with the hiding in the back trick.”

“I'm glad you noticed traveler, I've been expecting you.”

Ford smirked, of course she had been expecting some kind of a customer. He sighed, looks like she too was just a fraud ladened with lies that capered to the so called magic of her act.

“Well I’m glad you noticed I was walking up. How much for a reading.”

With a quick exchange of price, Ford was sat down in a clawfoot chair beside a silken table. Lifting her hood, the woman whose long gray hair fell past her small body and onto the floor stared intensely into Ford's flickering eyes.

“Well handsome, let's get started.”

Cards flipped from her hands to the other in magical ways that went unseen due to the shear velocity of their travels. In one throw, she sent them curving around the table, up her arm and around back into their deck which shuffled itself until every card was once again back in place. She set them down with a slap on the table - lifting her large hands to reveal their shining blue back. Tattooed, it seemed, to their surface were mappings of stars that glimmered and shone to shift and move like they were recordings of space.

“Place your hands upon the deck Stanford. Go on now don't be foolish, I’ve attuned them to my history so your hands must retune them.”

He lifted his hand still struck with amazement, almost forgetting that his hands were any different from those of an average person as they slid over the cold cards. He felt them shift below his palms as the witch looked in amazement at his extra digit before pulling his hand up from the deck and flipping it over.

“You have a split fate line, the cards feel it as do I.”

“F-fate line?”

She pointed to the fractured line on the bottom of his palm before retracting her hands quickly. Touching the deck, she fanned its cards over the table in a large circle with three sprawling rings and motioned for him to take four from any of the rings. Pacing over the cards with his eyes, he began to notice certain animals appear on the cards and with careful hands selected those which stood out to him the most. He hesitated on choosing his last animal, caught between two. The deer and the buffalo, and as he chose the deer he felt a twinge of guilt pass through his mind. As if he had selected it selfishly. He set these cards before her, watching her eyes grow wide and her hair flow with a gust of wind that suddenly picked up in the room, knocking all other cards off the table and into her back room before stopping.

“Let's see here. Four animals. In order, we have the deer. Trust does not come easy for the deer, who relies on very few and is more easily broken than most. But the deer is kind and excited nonetheless...

Then there's a goat, the devils animal, strong and inspiring with the tendency to stick through the roughest of situation through their stubborn nature and their pride. 

Hum the snake, another animal of spite, its venomous because of its sorrow and deadly due to abuse, but ever changing and free. 

The dog, the loyal dog will always come back to the side of its master, loyal to a fault it has no character beyond its love. These animals all represent those within your life, including yourself, but the cards faces aren't to be attached to these characters. Do you understand this?”

“Y-yes.  But tell me who are these people. Which animal represents me?”

Ford felt himself drawn to ask this question, drawn to believe in something that he had first thought to be a scam. He started wondering out of all of these animals which best fit him, which one could fit the others in his life, and most importantly why there were so few within his life.

“It is an interpretation Ford. You must project upon those thoughts to learn their details.”

She cackled loudly before coughing and turning to pick up her large smoking pipe which sat in the corner beside the table. Taking a long drawl on it, chuckling softly as she held up another card that had sat in her lap.

“The buffalo is an animal that is a strong worker, a person who doesn’t say no though they often should. Seeing as you set that person aside, one day they will say no to you. That no, will be their greatest act of kindness. As well as their last act. With the characters in your life figured out it's time to look at the plot.”

Quickly she flipped over the cards in the order Ford had laid them out in. First the deer was flipped, revealing the moon card. Next the goat was flipped to reveal the devil face card. The snake held the card entitled justice underneath, and the dog lastly held the card death. 

He scowled at the dog card before the witch tisked him.

“That is a good card to have, death coming from one who is loyal is honorable. It is not an end, so much as it is a new beginning.”

She spent time revealing the meanings to him, and within every detail Ford felt clamps hit his heart. He was in grave danger, on the tipping point of making one decision or another, and he simply did not know who to trust anymore. He felt eyes on his back and nearly jumped out of his seat when the tent flap opened.

“Oh there you are Ford. They said they’d clear and exit for the car.”

With a sigh of relief Ford looked at Noam who stood in the doorway with a black haired girl who smiled kindly and moved into the tents back room. The witch watched her happily before nestling into her shawl and casting her eyes on Ford again.

“Oh and thank you miss, for leading me back to him.”

Ford could hear her giggle and snort from the back room before she popped out again with a hand fan.

“No problem. This deer man's fortune has been read to its entirety. It's time for you to go.”

Noam nodded at her, looking at Ford who stood quickly but maintained eye contact with the witch who cried out after him.

“Come visit me again. Cute boys like yourselves deserve to be treated right by fine ladies such as ourselves! Well make it a date night.”

She winked at him saucily sending chills down Fords spine and giggles into Noam’s cheeks. Ford gulped, did she really just hit on him like that? I mean he hadn't seen cougars in his cards he was sure of that! He had never been hit on before and though it was appreciated she was…. Ancient, practically his grandmother's age and just- not his type? What was his type anyway?! Nope. He was going to end right there, he had questioned too much of himself because of that one sentence. This was too weird for him, he started to flee the tent hearing her call after him. 

Noam pushed out of the tent after him laughing his ass off as he tried to catch up with his friend. 

“Ford wait… come back.”

He practically burst into tears he was laughing so hard as he watched Ford speed off into the thick of the crowd trying to make his way to the car. Ford was lost in thought, blush coating his cheeks with embarrassed redden glow that grew worse with the afternoon heat. He felt himself break into laughing at the awkward situation before slamming into someone and hitting the ground behind him. Ford felt his laughter start to settle as he looked to see who he hit.

“Sorry about that. I wasn't watching where I was going.”

He pulled himself up on his elbows to look at the man whom he had knocked down flat onto the sidewalk. His thick golden curls and tanned skin shown in the glimmering sunlight radiantly as his glowing gold eyes lifted from their lids alongside a smile which peaked from his lips.

“That's alright. Glad we could run into each other again Ford. But you ruined the surprise I had planned.” 

Ford watched in amazement as the slender figure stood and pulled him up with a gentle tug of his hand. Pulled him up, how could he of all people pull him up. How could Bill touch him when he wasn't physical in this world. 

“What is it Ford, cat got your tongue?”

<()>

__  
  


“How did you do it?”

Ford's face was alight almost constantly at the dinner table wondering how on Earth his muse was here within this world looking as he did within their first interactions in the mindscape. Noam stared at him too, but it wasn't in amazement. It was more so in harsh judgement, a glared which spawned from contempt and anger. He was the being who disproved his theory, and more over was here to give Ford more pieces to support his. 

He would be a blockade for Noam’s succession, and more over Noam knew that they could see through each others facades. They were both capitalizing on Fords loneliness, but they couldn't see each others motives in doing so. And so though they entertained Ford for the night, they shot glares at one another in between sentences.

“Oh, well you know. I've been making deals. Figured that this next stage in your work will require a few more hands, so here I am to pitch in and help.”

“Next stage, his next stage is documentation of his findings, so unless you're a writer I doubt you can-”

“Now I wouldn't want to steal Fords thunder like some people. I mean after all, he's a fabulous writer all on his own.”

Bill’s head tipped to the side as he smirked at Noam whose eyes stiffened into sharp judgement. 

“I see, so what is your next course of action Ford?”

“Well, you see I’ve been mulling it over and I wanted for a long time to expand my research. I mean, if we argue that weirdness and anomalies that trigger behavior within our dimension are from a dimension at its foundation - why not look into that foundational dimension.”

“Ha, think bigger Stanford.”

Bill laughed tipping his head to the side boyishly.

“Why go one way when you can go all ways if you catch my drift? Go all ways.”

His smile spitefully broadened as he saw Noam grit his teeth and grind them spitefully as his lips slipped over to hide his displeasure. This triangle…. He made it harder and harder to keep a straight face.

“What do you mean?”

Noam leaned forward surprising Ford with his sour tone and creeping shoulders which tucked his arms up from their elbows shoving his thumb up against his chin.

“If you want to complete your research Ford, you should build a gateway to other worlds. Not just a peephole into one, but a way to step to walk through into countless other realities. There are no limits after all when you have vision.”

“Right. Ha. To imagine venturing into other worlds. It's something I could only dream of.”

“Something you thought you could only dream of Fordsy. But here I am, making it a reality. That’s the way genius works after all. With a little help from a friend.”

“So what's the catch?”

Noams eyes darkened as his lips spoke in stark contrast to the mood from their hidden place behind his hands.

“What do you mean Sparky?”

“There was a catch with our deal, so won't there be one with hi-”

Interjecting, Bill jutted out into the air with an open palm and a salesman like smile, he hated this. Acting like such a brat in front of his friend, and more importantly having to stall the guilt that built up in him as he lied through his teeth about his true intentions behind building the portal.

“Possession is not a catch. And I did what I could to get you both out of the situation alive.”

“So you couldn't have done this then? Couldn't have rescued us in your own body the-”

“It took more energy than what I had at the time to create this body,” 

This was a lie and they both knew it. Bill was shaken at this point, his heart pounding in his chest and his shaking hands uneasy as they flew from the table to wrap around his own neck and still his thought process before with a smile he jutted his head back up to fabricate some sort of half truth.

“My power, at its most basic level requires me to give up years of my life in order to make physical energy. Often of times, there are those who do not desire their life, who strike deals with me that are so powerful that they are willing to burn away their entire life to see them completed. You can’t imagine what it's like to feel the weight of nearly thousands of lives not worth living flock within your being. Even your own moments of life that you discarded in that possession help to fuel the fires I quell. Point being, I make very bad things into very meaningful actions. So do your best not to insult those poor unfortunate souls, like yourself, who have no one else to turn to.”

Noam stopped, observing as Ford watched them battle about like snakes and scorpions. Acting like this would not win them any awards and it was hurting him more then it was harming his adversary. He had not won the battle this time around, and though he hated it he surrendered and put on a defeated face.

“You’re right. I shouldn't have pushed you to explain this to me. That was rude.”

“Pftt. Don't worry bout it Gompygompers. I was getting a bit saucy too.”

His hand flicked about in a posh manner, as Noams face began to fluster softly upon hearing the name. His ears flushed red at their tips as he watched Bill encourage Ford to ask about the nickname.

“Gompygompers?”

“It was a name given to me when I was little, my mom would call me that because she claimed that I ate everything and gomped everything down.”

“Little did she know how true that was huh Sparky?”

“Does he do that often Ford? Does he go-”

“Into places of your mind that he shouldn't go? Yes. Its cute really though, that name and Bills bad attempts at connection. Sheds light on why you seem to be the only one able to tolerate my cooking. The Pines are notoriously bad cooks.”

“Least you're better dancers Sixer. You got something going for you.”

Bill looked at him happily, before a shiver was sent up his spine causing him to sigh and his smile to fade. The sun had died down in the room not to long ago causing the room to grow colder. But for whatever reason he couldn't warm up in this body, and his temperature had lowered enough to finally cause him to start shivering despite the fact that his skin was dampened with sweat. He had already tucked himself up into his chair to the point where his knees hit his chest which had been aching as it hadn't before during any possession, and as always his slow breathing ghosted the air around him. He felt something drape around his shoulders and lifted his head slowly to see that Ford had grabbed a light blue throw blanket from the couch to give to him.

“Seems like you're not used to the cold huh Bill.”

Wrapping the blanket around himself bill chuckled, feeling his heart race a bit.

“Not used to feeling any type of temperature at all actually. Don't know how you third dimensioners deal with all these..”

“Senses.”

Noam interjected to finish his sentence, seeing as he was stuck on the word and he nodded softly letting the night carry on its small conversations. He tucked the blanket tighter around himself resting his head in the soft fabric as he sighed sadly. It felt wrong. Convincing someone so sweet, so kind, a person who was like him before all of this happened. He felt his lids quiver before calming again and glancing over towards Ford.

Just watching him was nice. Watching him smile and listening to his ideas. He was the real deal after all. A person like him, a person who could see into another dimension beyond that of his own. A thinker who cared about people and from a fundamental level loved them. He was just as alone as Bill was. But now he wasn’t. They weren't alone.

That was a warm thought, and one that would dissolve as Kryptos’ words loomed in the back of his mind and redirected him.

“Either way Ford, getting back on subject. We’ll probably need another research assistant, and someone who's more familiar with modifying computer code and scripts since a portal will be a very complex build.”

“I think I have one person in mind.”

“So our trio expands into a quartet.”

“Only if I can call up Fiddleford and get him to drop his project.”

Bill found himself chuckling tiredly, letting his lids hood themselves as he buried himself into the blanket which smelled of soft cotton and musty plants. 

“Hum… another Ford then? Are all your friend so resemblant of your name.”

“Ha, if you don't count yourself and Noam as my friends then yes.”

The statement loomed in the air as Ford paced off to ring up his friend leaving the two adversaries in the room together alone to shoot glares at one another.

“You’re such a bullshitter.”

Bill cringed at the language, looking at Noam distastefully before shrugging. He didn't have to restrict his bitterness now. He could instead direct it at Noam now, and possibly break him down in the process.

“I know. Its great isn’t it. I'm doing a better job them you are. And that's saying something considering you got away with committing a similar crime before.”

“Don't act so smug, it's not in your character.”

His words were blank and cutting causing Bill's eyes to roll open with malicious intent.

“So what is my real character then wise guy?”

Curling his hands up into a fist, Noam cast his glance to the side thinking. He didn't know much more about this creature, but he'd be damned if he'd let that stop him. He’d have to start prying into things before this character intersected his own plan and made his thievery harder. It was going to be harder regardless, he didn’t have magic powers, he didn't have an edge. But he was going to try to gain one.

“Something I’m going to find out.”

The words sent chills down Bill’s spine. They were spoken in pure truth and backed by some power which was all too familiar to Bill who caught himself as he whispered under his breath  _ tisk. _

_ Astar Tisk.  _

★


	6. The Flames

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ho ho ho.... a shipping chapter...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone! There is Fluff at the end of the chapter, so you have been warned now. Moreover I hope you all enjoy reading this, hopefully, this section will be wrapped up in two-three more chapters and from there well breaking into another collection of chapters called Ashes (Which may or may not be another work on this cite all on its own).

 

**_“ Responsibility demands sacrifice.” - Princess Bubblegum, Adventure Time_ **

 

It would be in the summer that he arrived on a cold train ride which pivoted through the canyons and passed over the smokey torrents of those warm hot rushed California cities as he made his way back into the familiar territory of trees and plane stretches. Except it wasn’t familiar, for Fiddleford nothing ever was. 

 

He was going to be honest with himself, he hated the cold, and had he hated Ford he wouldn't have come. He didn't hate Ford and much to the opposite was fascinated with the world his friend could see, a world of merriment and excitement that laid beyond his touch even while they were in college.  Maybe in some small way, he was leaving his home, wife and child, not to just provide them financial support or to visit a friend - rather he was there to rediscover the oddity of his friend.

 

It's only once in a lifetime, after all, that you meet someone so brilliantly out of phase that their entire being so genuinely alive, so vivid that you don't recognize you lives are separate.

 

As it halted to a screeching stop FiddleFord dismounted the train, his eyes glimmered through his spectacles as he hunted around for a payphone. He swore to god, but not really, when he couldn't find any open ones. 

 

“Heck…”

 

His breath pushed up smoke as his feet carried him onward into the cold of the night. He'd have to hitch a bus next to be there by the morning, to be there in Gravity Falls in the morning. For now though it seemed that everyone was missing home, and so he would have to politely wait behind others until he too could express his sickness into the line leading to home. Pacing into the small booth after another individual whom- he had to squint his eyes at because of the striking resemblance to Ford… In any case, the scent of cold brew drifted from him and filled the booth with sickly swill and lingering desperation. 

 

“Yeah.. this is fine, he probably had a rough night. Good lord don't we all.”

 

He gritted his teeth and fished in his pocket for his glasses cloth which he used to protect his hands as he dialed and held the phone close. It was a short call, not much to say other than simple pleasurable  _ Miss you _ ’s and worrying statements that would be toughed out in the sake of pride.

 

She was a proud lady. She could take care of herself, their kid wasn’t coming anytime soon, the pregnancy pain wasn't abnormal, and their son was being the man of the house. They were simple people, simple and brilliant people who wore their life out like a leather jacket. A day at a time.

 

And in a day he reached the cold cut cabin, in the summer, the summer that was 70 degrees. 

 

He shivered. For a Texan, that was too damn cold.

 

But there Ford was, sitting on the porch couch in an old raggedy wife beater and light khaki jacket as a blonde haired sly looking man in what looked to be a flowing white blouse like collared shirt smirked up at him.

 

“Just show me, or I’ll find it myself.”

 

His smile was bright and for a vague moment Fiddleford felt odd approaching them. Like a parent watching a young couple try to approach one another.

 

“Knock it off Bill, you said you'd help me with these equations.”

 

“Okay well, x is equal to how many times you've lightened up this morning”

 

“..... so zero…”

 

“But! It’s also potentially one, so show me that tattoo huh?”

 

Smiling and shuffling forward Fiddleford interjected, catching both the men by surprise.

 

“ Are you pressing Ford about his octo-warrior-piglets tattoo.”

 

“Well he didn't tell me it was that great, but yes Fiddler, that is what I'm pressing on.”

 

“Fiddler? Well, I reckon you're half right about my name.”

 

“Right enough to concoct a correct nickname in perfect timing. Regardless, names Bill. Take it you had a rough trip you look like hell.”

 

Ford roughly glared at Bill who smile back at him, eyes glancing to the side as if to say  _ at least i'm honest Ford _ . Tension between the two fluttered out as they heard the chipper chuckle and snort of Fiddleford’s laughter.

 

“I’d say you're right about that. It was a pretty bloodied eye train ride over here.”

 

Sighing Ford peeled himself from the couch, welcoming his friend with a warm hug before leading him inside to the cabin to discuss their research. Opening the door, they were greeted by Noam who slipped by them briskly in a large deep pocketed overcoat.

 

“Oh hello, sorry I can’t talk right now something urgent has come up.”

 

“Oh it's alright Noam. This is my friend Fiddleford, our computational guy. We'll introduce you two to each other later though.

 

“Agreed, I’ll be seeing you later then.”

 

With that Noam walked out into the summer heat in a flurry, his brow beaded with sweat as Bill's eyes swept over him with suspension. Bill pried up his body from the couch peering inward after Ford one more time before slipping away himself leaving Ford to peel his eyes over the information alongside his friend.

 

They would spend the afternoon together in this way, lost in planning and diagramming, but also in the smaller more gentle talk of friends who had been distant from one another for many years. The air felt alive again, more simple and friendly with the chimes of college talk that lifted out of the dorm window. Now it lofted around the wood cabin, and its subject had changed from small talk about how little love life they had to more vibrant talk about work. The tension of loneliness was held at bay with each kind hearted question.

 

“No, my sons doing alright. Took after his mom more then me though Stanford. He's a creative, with wonderful questions and little answers.”

 

“Ha, so it looks like she passed on her philosophy degree.”

 

“Yeah, but regardless, I’ve built up a good enough of a foundation for them to be who they are.  It was my god given job to after all Stanford.”

 

Smiling down at the blueprints they had worked out Fiddleford shook his head. He took up another pen from the table marking out more shapes on a scratch paper. They needed something with harsher geometry to do this. It still needed to stand up though. A star… maybe. He drotted it down quickly before Ford’s words filled the air again. 

 

“You miss them.”

 

“So much. And it's only been a couple of days. Lord don't I feel foolish.”

 

“Foolishness is what humbles a man, you said that to me after my first failed exam if you can remember.”

 

They continued to work pulling out maps to triangulate where it seemed the dimensional wall was at its weakest. It seemed like just a bit further into the forest was a good place to start. But they would need to run further tests. 

 

“Still to this day, I can’t believe you passed that class. The professor hated you more then….  More than he did me but that's beyond the point.”

 

“But he loved Eileen. Made you both notice each other.”

 

“Still to this day, I don't know why she did.”

 

He penciled down one more equation before looking to Ford one more time.

 

“So you still shooting single?”

 

Ford sighed heavily looking off to the side.

 

“Yes.”

 

“Well maybe this will get girls to start talking to ya. Do you have any material that would be able to withstand the direct tension and compression fluctuation needed to unravel this ‘space time rip’ you intend to create.”

 

“Yes, I had it written down somewhere in my journal. Would you believe that I've already had to start another journal? Filled up the first entirely with my work in biological anthropology, the second is more focused on our current work with- “

 

He shuffled through a few papers on his desk, his brow furrowed intensely as he looked around the table. He stooped down, looking at the floor beneath the table. Perhaps it had been knocked off? He stood up his eyes meeting his friends quizzical look.

 

“Maybe you left it in the kitchen… the bathroom… the porch?”

 

“Maybe but I distinctly remember setting it down right here. “

 

“Okay, what does it look like?”

 

“Red cover, it's a fabric hard back with a golden handprint sticker on the cover. It is literally the flashiest arts and craft project I have ever made, I made it that way so I literally couldn't lose it.”

 

Scrambling around for a few moments, they found little more than dust and potentially the remains of some long lost dust bunny mangle.

 

“You have to be kidding me. It couldn't have just walked off on its ow- well no that isn't necessarily true around here… but I know for a fact that it was moved by some force other than me.”

 

“That's alright Ford, it will turn back up when we least expect it. Just give a prayer to Saint Anthony. Until then, how about we grab a bite to eat? Heard there's a pretty good diner around here.”

 

Sighing with frustration Ford shook his head.

 

“Fiddleford this isn't something I can just up and ignore.”

 

“No, but sometimes you need to take a step back from things.”

 

Ford shook his head, striding off from room to room attempting to find the journal before at last he was back at the desk, shuffling through things again.

 

“Come on Stanford. Just listen to some friendly advice this once? If it's here it isn't gonna leave anytime soon.”

 

With a reluctant sigh, he agreed. It was better sometimes to listen to his friend. He would always listen to his friend.

 

★

 

Bill would trace through the paved streets following at a distance the man who he openly sought the destruction of. What was it to him after all, what was this one life to him when he had killed thousands with the single snap, the single ignition of his fingertips.

 

_ Click _ , they were gone, all the fools who pitched their ignorance as humility blackened to tar and disfigured into mounds of melting flesh which pop popped from their bones like soup on the stove. In their place stood those fools. Those lucky few fools whose eyes had been turned upwards by some cruel action of god, those who slipped like eels in the oily black of the night to froth and fonicate with their own sickly inbred social group. The dream demons.

 

They were the same as the burning corpses, ignorant, stagnant, unfeeling. Bill should have burned them as well, and the feeling and thoughts of this regret signed avidly into his mind as for some reason. Seeing this one human brought him back to those thoughts he had healed from. It brought him back to that lowly group of five who brewed his hatred and pushed his genocide into action rather than words. He hated him for it. For bringing back the bitterness.

 

He had no one to run to, to chase it away anymore. 

 

So much like a hungry wolf whose stomach was pitched in and creased in emptiness he stalked onward, after this figure whose sunlight hair shown red like fire in the peaking light of midday.

They pulled into the old brick library building, sitting there like prey and predatory. The prey of course noticed Bill stiffly, he had more work to do though and paced towards the desk firmly asserting his question to the counter attendant.

 

“What books do you have on Gravity Falls’ history on hand?” 

 

“Over here dear.”

 

The librarians heels clicked against the ground as Bills fingers clicked against the wood of his cane before pulling away and straightening himself. He bit his nails as he watched Noam pour over book after book at a frustratingly slow pace.

He stood up afterwards, bounding outwards to many other locations in the day. He visited the mansion atop the hill to inquire about a tapestry they held there, he slipped down to the forestry department to ask about the Native American paintings within the Gravity Falls caves. Then, the last steps he took in the day would place him at the home, the american home. Its white picket fence and gleaming blue exterior enchanted him as Noam walked in and rattled on the door. 

 

He was welcomed in, and Bill waited patiently until he resurfaced from the wooded confines of the house just as the amber sunset fell across the hills.

 

Bill pulled off into an alleyway, spying through his golden eyes Noam slip into a lot that rested between the home and a car lot where a there stood a softly swaying blue tent. Noams eyes casted over it dauntingly as he pulled from his pocket the second and first journals before pushing his way through the flap and into the blue room. Bills eyes narrowed, this place.

 

“Hello..?” 

 

Noams voice echoed in the tent and his eyes paced over the pews doggily before taking his seat in the empty rows and opening the book. The second journal. He poured over the writing again and again, trying to find the page that peaked his interest, the page about this supposed muse.

 

The diagrams, the pages were all written in favor of him despite the fact that their author clearly knew nothing more about Bill then what the creature himself had allowed him to know. It was pointless. He had gained much more infromation from the other sources then from these journals. But it was still so little.

 

He was going to find out though. He was going to make sure that triangle backed off of any deal he had struck with Ford and he was going to make sure that every article found within this book he held would be published under his own name. The only person who would foil his research after all, should be himself. 

 

He flipped through page after page as he felt someone grow ever closer to opening the flap of the tent, some wretched and unwanted being that was here to ingulf and smother his tepid fingers with rage and anguish that was by far diverted from its original recipient.

 

The tension hung in the air, moving forward across the cold wooden pews of the church like tent turning it into a crypt in which he would lay out to die. He had come here seeking knowledge, and was promised through Bud Gleeful’s words that here he would find the answer. Salvation, redemption, redirection whatever it was he sought he would find here. Scattered amongst that old world grandeur of a church attuned to the odd and minded by the meek of faith. 

 

It grew heavier, claws seemingly crawling against the waxed cloth like nails on a chalkboard as the cover lifted just long enough to hear Noam’s heart pounding in his chest before bursting into a muffle of iron rich coughs and sputters as his bloodshot eyes watched the curtain fall.

 

All grew silent as the true predator trapped from the rafters in divinity, and those meek of faith, Bill, were sent far astray from the gospel that was to be preached.

★

 

Opening his astounded eyes Bill found himself in a clearing, the clearing where he had been summoned first. Far, far away from the tent where the star demon now clutched his newest prophet, filling his head with lies and truths as he ripped the years from his mortal form moment by moment. At least that's what he knew was happening, for he had been evicted from the area and cast into this clearing. 

 

He staggered back, dazed and confused before unbelieveable pain set into his body forcing him, coughing, onto his knees. Bill coughed and hacked until he felt his form shiver and slip in and out from the human visage it had held morphing like dough into other animals. Its bones launched out in jagged protrusions alongside its convulsions, tearing at the skin only to bleed out a sickly green which misted as it hit the grass with its intense heat. He felt himself quiver his teeth in his mouth launching up into his gumline, trying to stretch back into that predator opened jaw that it naturally held. 

 

Claws gripped the grass, before fading into hooves, and then into hands again. He could not escape from this body, from the body of the shapeshifter which he had made an agreement with. Something held him in and forced every pain receptor in this body to spiral out of control. He limped in a moment, letting tears stream down his cheeks onto the open grass beside him as he coughed one last time into his shaken hands feeling something hard and cold slide up his throat and across his fingertips. Gagging the item fell out into his open hands letting him fall to his side in shaken disarray. He rolled onto his back clutching the object, clutching the iron rail spike that sunk its way into this body's core.

 

Witchcraft…  had there ever been a more clear gimmick of Astar then that. He felt tears roll to his face more freely now. The threat Noam had posed was actualized now, he was assure of it. He was making the same mistake Bill had, and he would regret it in the same way too now. All power comes with a heavy price tag after all. Bill had known that twice over.

 

He felt himself shake in this weakened state, the cold air wrapping over him stiffly as he slunk up in his no longer human form. He dragged the body he possessed over to a soft place to rest before leaving it, feeling the pain even in his two dimensional body that brought him down to the flat plane of this world.

 

He shook alongside the shapeshifter who after pressing her soul back into her form stared back at him with cold hatred, like a beaten and broken war horse drawn out to die in the long cold cascades of winter. Her breath steamed the air beside Bill whose breath was meaningless and unnoticed in the cold air of a world that was not his own. Both stood, though Bill was more weakened now and faltered at each attempt to ascend beyond they ground and hover. He stood after failing again to rise, knowing that he would instead have to slink through the night on foot, or at least rest here until he could hover through the fluxuating rift that allowed his interaction with the world above his to exist . Looking back he furrowed his brow at the shapeshifter who eyed him with pleading worried brow. Like leaves they both quivered softly as the hilly air swept over them both. Bill sighed, snapping sharply and charmingly back at the creature in honest tone.

 

“Our agreement will be fulfilled okay... We’ve just reached some complications. I’ll make sure that son of yours is found.”

 

Fixing his slipping tie, Bill quickly scooped up his cane in his shaking hands. He wouldn't last long exposed to the third dimensional world. He would have to find a mindscape to hide away in quickly. A two dimensional space where he could hopefully make a deal so as to quell the tremors caused by magical withdrawal…

 

He summoned up enough strength to crawl through the night air, ascending and twirling about leaving yet another deal only partially completed. He wandered that oily black tar strone road into the town, passing by shop and store as he made his way to the edges. His strength was giving up on him, but he sensed a dreamer nearby. He drifted into some family oriented diner that sat lonesomely beside the dimly lit shopping mart parking lot, unnoticed by all the people of that three dimensional world. Phasing through the doorways, he found himself looking upon a cast of characters who shuffled about the room. Smiling, laughing, rubbing the bitter defeat into Bill’s small heart like coffee grounds on a white blouse. One laugh though carried throughout the coffered wood walls, spinning his melancholy on his head. He was amongst them, to his relief, the familiar face of Ford who smiled happily alongside his friend drinking rootbeer carried this heartening laughter around the room blissfully. 

 

Bill allowed himself to drift on it, carrying himself to the counter before slipping into the back of his inventors mind to rest within the wheatfields of his subconscious, knowing things in this world were going to get harder for him. Chills flashed up Fords spine as they crossed paths, leaving the hair on his arms standing. 

 

“Did you feel that.”

 

“Stop trying ta spook me, Standford. You and this crazy summerween business.”

 

“No, it was… Probably nothing...”

 

“Still anxious I see.”

 

“How could I not be?”

 

Ford wrung his neck casting his head back before sinking back again into his seat, elbows pressed to the counter as his brow pressed to the rim of his thick glasses. 

 

“Come on Ford. Let’s head home, try one more time. For you.”

 

Fiddleford knocked Ford sympathetically in the shoulder with his glass before pushing himself off the stool leading the way to the cashier to pay and exit. They loaded into the car bound for home and after arriving set about searching once more. Sure enough there it was. The journal, both of them, set out on the kitchen table beside noam who tiredly sat pouring over their notes alongside other notes gathered from the library. His eyes looked frazzled and his hair slightly whitened at the tips as if age had hit him in a desperate wave.

 

“Hello, I was just checking over your notes and cross-referencing the data with historical sites. I think, that you may have actually picked the perfect place to build this cabin, Ford.”

 

Peeling off his glasses and stirring his coffee, Noam’s eyes cast over the pair who hung in the kitchen doorway with charm and stalwart confidence.

 

“Were right on top of the weakest point the the fabric of spacetime here on Earth.”

 

★

 

Introductions passed, sour and sore between the three men in the room. Though Fiddleford shrugged off the fact the Ford was immediately forgiving of this stranger who had taken possession of his things without asking, even in the face of Ford’s earlier outburst, he felt a bit more rigid towards this individual. 

 

He knew his friend well enough to know that Ford depended on no one, yet here were two people who changed that most obvious of facts, Bill and Noam. People that won his trust in a matter of months, rather than the long hardpressed years Fiddleford had taken to even lure Ford out from the study they shared those 5 years ago. Yet, it wasn't jealousy that drove him to contain himself, it was caution. One that came at the price of withholding most of his views and ideas.

 

Fiddleford needed to talk less, to make sure that either individual didn't know whose side he fell on. To stay impartial as Ford clearly hadn’t. He would have to play a game with them, these two fast friends of Ford,  though as an honest Texan he hated doing so.

 

But it was okay. Not everybody can form a relationship based off moments strung out like film developing on a line, some cling for more depth and wind up displeased by their expectations of a deep and enriching story which they sacrificed their time and energy to achieve, but Fiddleford could like like a wire. Each moment on its own, was appreciated as it should be. It was simple, without expectations or thought put into it. Life was made to be so simple, and like a computer code complexity was merely manufactured from simpler codes.

 

So Fiddleford watched them carry on in conversation, answered questions by acknowledging both sides of the argument which Noam recognized and unconsciously sought to unravel. Cocking his head about he pressed more, until the conversation was between him and Fiddleford only. This didn't bother Ford though, who took the time to stray from the room as a headache ruptured his mind with piercing pain and pulsating dizziness.

 

He rested on his bed beside the window which moonlight fell from, casting shades of grey over the pale fingers that rested over the warmth of his burn amber blanket. As he lay himself down, papers crunched beneath him into curling domes. He dug them out from beneath him, laying them down on the nightstand beside his bed. Work it seemed happened without a break now, he carried it to bed with him, walked about with it, dare he say each breath was taken with regards to his work.

 

But now he rested, his mind dropping off the edge of the world like a brick which sunk into the twisting and twirling waves until it resounded at the bottom. Film from the shore below would wake, expanding outwards in a musty cloud as this rock of consciousness would settle, alone and distant in its new world weighed down forever. A death in the depths.

 

But this metaphor wasn't merely how his sleep felt, it was what he saw in his dreams which were now it seemed always so vivid. He felt his fingers loft weightlessly as the dust around him cleared with the soft current that scooped the lakebed dust up, brushing it backwards, as his hair began to settle on his face as his glasses pulled to orbit his head. His hands reached out to grab them pulling them back onto his nose. As it pressed against him, he felt suddenly weighed again, reality had overthrown him seeing this world as merely a dream. The pressure to breath forced him to dash into some unseen upwards, to the light which he could not see, but knew existed.

 

He pushed through the surface of the dream water gasping for long cold air before exhaling cold smokestacks. He was yanked up further by something else, a small wooden chair hoisted up by a primitive looking crane of sorts which he found his legs tied to. They came loose as he struggled to free himself, and he fell. Landing was harsh, for where the water had been there was only hard cobblestone and dirt now. He picked himself up nonetheless, drawing upon his strength to turn and look out at the bright starry sky.

 

Could there had been a more beautiful sight, no. No there was no other sight that wrapped all around you like this, one that sent ghosting chills up your arms from quaking fingertips bringing all heat to your chest in a radiational blow. It was a sight that crafted the individual who saw themselves as a part in its domain. Like that these stars, which shone more of their swirling hot colours and pitted their light in and out of vision, broke Ford into metaphorical stardust. And he shone bright alongside them from the ground he stood on.

 

He did not want to pull away from their sight for a moment, but he had to examin the world around him out of curiosity. It was a stark contrast. Bland... with the vibes of those historical towns who burned witches and early men of science out of fear, envy, and malice. It lay bare of colour with wood painted white or lain barren in dusty brown shadows which fell from the pale moon that swung overhead. The homes seemed chapped, if one could even apply that word to homes, and the brick facade that laced up their chimneys did not help.

 

The sense of unwelcome flooded Ford as he walked through the town where he saw no one but heard the tepid whispers of those he clearly walked beside through the wind. Their whispering were not understandable, not to him but certainly to someone. Ford walked onward, watching the homes fade into the remains of charred structures before seeing them at last only remain as imprints left by fires. The wind rushed around him, but the voices it carried had extinguished. Stillness hung in a tense moment before his eyes caught onto something. It was something untouched by fire, despite the fact that it stood in the burnt out footprint of  a large home. A church perhaps?

 

Ford climbed over the rubble, looking more curiously at it now. It was a triangle, translucent in colour like silk, perhaps a craft made by some long forgotten child which would now go unfinished. Its edges were tattered, the lines made on it thick, black, and scratchy accept for a long centerline which remained perfectly straight and horizontal. 

 

He stooped over it, looking at it curiously as his hand reached for it. Before it hit the sides he felt something strange. There were thin fibers attached to this paper, like spider silk but smooth rather than sticky, and these fibers formed what looked to be a rippling fin like fringe at its sides. Perhaps this wasn't an object at all, but some type of rod or sky fish, a creature which he had heard about many years before. 

 

With gentle hands he reached for its edges, lifting it up. 

 

His hands made contact with fabric rather than the spider silk texture of the creature's body, making Ford blink rapidly and reexamine the thing he held in his hands which now gasped harshly as if to gag back sadness that quaked its being.

 

What Ford held was no longer unrecognizable, moreover its bleach blonde hair and now paper white skin gave its Egyptian features more dimension.

 

“B-bill.?”

 

“You shouldn't be here.”

Bill was barely able to spit out his words before he began to cough out radient red blood alongside the tears which had drawn back from his eye to slide down his throat and choke him with their morbidity. Bill brought his shaky had to push Ford away from him, to push his hands away from their fastened position around his waist. But instead, his limb curled at the joint, resting loosely on his friend as he tucked his face into its crook to hide away his painful tears.

He didn't look real, more like A-ha’s lead singer in the MTV music video, he looked hand drawn. He was merely lineart in all perceptions, lacking colour as he quivered like an abused animal adorned in the priestlike grab that was so characteristic of him. Looking at his clothes, then back at the world around that surrounded them, Ford's mind leaped to a conclusion. One that he was sure was correct.

 

“This is your mindscape isn't it?”

 

“Gods… Why am I damn with smart friends.”

He laughed sadly, pulling his face out from his arms to wipe the tears away with his palms. He tried to smile again, but it curled into a tooth bitten and tear driven grin which spilled forth into shallow choking and blood red splatters that dashed at his lips. His breath hitched, and Ford could feel the shallow breaths wrack up and down Bills waist causing Ford’s hands to wave along with them. 

 

“Good lord Bill, you don't need to put on a face all the time. Just because you're some magical being with extraordinary power doesn't mean that you need to suck it up for my sake.”

 

“I'm not doing it for that Ford… I'm an ugly cryer okay.”

 

“What?”

 

“I’m just such an ug-

 

“You’re not that vain Bill -”

 

“You don't know that… you don't know anything about me..”

He laughed at that, feeling his teeth bite down on his lip as his weak arms fell to his side.

“Nobody does anymore.”

 

Ford felt jarred at that. Bill was right, but.. the fact that he didn't know anything about Bill hurt him for some reason. He.. he wanted to know more, but Bill was so distant, so caught up in something he couldn’t see. He was walled up in secrets in doubts that stretched into miles as far as Mexico, but he didn't express it. He carried the weight of his burdens, his mistakes alone it felt. And maybe that hurt so much because Ford had watched another carry his burdens and their own countless times. 

 

Maybe now, it was his time to act like Stanley did at the best of times. To act as an anchor for someone lost in the sea of their own doubts.

 

His hands lifted from their clenched position resting on Bills shoulders as his left hand reached to turn his friends face back up.

 

“Tell me then. Tell me about you. We’ve spent enough time talking abou-”

 

“You’re rambling again,” 

Bill looked at him sadly, his eyes appreciative of this direction, but still looming in sadness that made his hands crawl up his face and bunch at their last joints as they pressed against his face in anxious closure. He dropped his head jaggedly into Ford's hand, gasping in pain as he was pulled so that he could rest his head on Ford’s shoulder.

 

Words dropped in that moment, and the air around them calmed, letting the stars ahead shine brighter. Bill broke the silence after a moment, chasing away the sadness, but not able to place the facade he had crafted back on.

 

“Well… I'm vain for starters.”

 

Bill snickered and Ford sighed, rolling his eyes as he stirred the air with a solid chuckle.

 

“Well, I knew that already.”

“Guess that's why I like you humans so much. You have so many angles and express so much with them. It's so beautiful. For a long time Standford I wanted to be that beautiful..”

Ford smiled, laughing with one single burst into the sky. Bill pulled back from him moments later, his color back again in his honey brown hands which glided up to Ford’s face brushing over the creases in his smile.

 

“What about the people of your world.”

 

Bill shook his head retracting his hands as his own smile lines faded into a curving blank canvas again.

 

“I guess I couldn’t really see the beauty in them until it was too late. My brother could, though.”

 

“You have a brother?”

 

“We were twins, probably why we came out so sideless.”

 

“Sideless?”

 

“We were triangles born to a  HexahectahexacontakaihexagonHexahectahexacontakaihexagon Ford…”

 

“...”

 

“ Our father was almost a circle Ford, a divine shape in our world because it has infinite sides but none at all. It made him practically royalty.”

 

“So you were a prince then?”

 

“Gods Ford you're not even close… I was the son of a preacher man.”

 

Bill fiddled with his collar which took on new meaning as Ford now rationalized what he was wearing. It was a clergy outfit, maybe? But then… why did he have such thick gloves?

 

“Dad was, he was a saint compared to all other preachers. No daddy issues here, no sir.”

 

Lacing his fingers together Bill stretched his back out with his arms up rolling out of Ford’s hold to sit on the ground with his arms supporting him from behind. He pulled up his one leg though, which had been settled between Ford’s legs which had lifted themselves just above it in knee bending crouch. Seeing this Ford settled back onto the ground in a seiza position listening as his friend talked.

 

“No, I had a good job, as a craftsman for the church. What else could a triangle be after all in such a heavily cast and ingrateful class system? Despite the fact that Milly and I were blind, we made things of amazing quality.”

 

“Blind? You can see now, though, did that just change when you-”

 

“When I became more powerful, no. I was blind to my world Ford. You could say that my eyes were placed wrong, on the plane rather than the sides like all the others… most of the others. Milly was the same. He never opened his eye, though. Only me.”

 

“So what's stopping him.”

 

“Well amongst other things death.”

 

Ford sucked in his laugh, cringing with sadness and happiness at the morbid joke as he watched Bill do the same.

 

“How did he?”

 

“War. We were drafted to make weapons of course. Its - ha- real funny to think that my job went from crafting things to entomb people with, to being the reason why they needed to be buried. But I crafted both for Mill… what killed him and what he was entombed in. I made him… well I guess you'd call it a rifle.. But it stopped working right we he needed it most… Guess we really do live long enough to see ourselves become the villain huh Ford?”

 

“Yeah… we really do.”

 

Ford looked down at his own hands, things striking out at him with clearer vision. Here was this other person with a history like his own, like his brothers. But, it was obviously more intense, and more loving thereafter. 

 

Looking Ford up and down with a smirk littered across his face and his hands bent up at his chest in some graceful angle Bill shook his head taking his friend's hands in his own. They strung together happily like patchwork, his extra digit was no problem for Bill after all.

 

“Ford, hindsight's 20/20. I’m sure that your brother cares about you. You’re twins, after all, you don’t face problems alone.”

 

Ford stared with a soft smile at their hands, feeling happier. The burden he had kept, the burdens they both kept had been strone across the table in more wild an open expression than the starry night which gazed upon them from overhead. They weren't alone now, even in their abandonment of thought. They had each other. 

 

They carried on their conversation as they did when they first met. But something had changed, something had drawn Bill closer to Ford’s world to the point where he almost felt physical. He wanted to express it, to be close to someone he found so free and alive. Not just alive but gracefully lost in his own world, to the point where he shined like the stars above. Dare Bill say it, Ford was a star that shown above, a real and authentic star unlike the false god he first felt pulled to. As Astar had. 

 

Ford stood up offering his hand to Bill so they could walk amongst the stars, away from the depressing setting below. Smiling Bill coughed again, more blood curdling itself from his nose and lips, his violent trembling building in his frail state.

 

“What happened to you… If I can ask that.”

 

“Demons get into fights sometimes Ford. And sometimes I loose, though not often.”

 

Stooping down Ford took out a cloth from his pocket, offering it to Bill who reached for it. His fingers pinched it from Ford's hand, stalling as he hovered over it his heart thudding loudly. He snapped out of it, not daring to ask the question that slipped over his tongue and spilled out and over his lips causing them to smile. 

 

He felt his hand taken after he dabbed the blood away, and when his legs weakly gave way when he tried to stand, he felt lifted up by Ford's shoulder which drew under his. 

 

“Thank you, Ford.”

 

“What, did you expect me to leave you here to wallow?”

 

“Kinda.”

 

They chuckled a moment longer before toppling over one another as they tried to stride forward in a half working pile. Bill smiled as he laid with his torso draped partially over Ford’s. 

 

“You’ll have to leave me here. Go on without me!”

 

Throwing his arms back dramatically Bill crunched up again coughing like the primadonna girl he was, shooting kind-eyed glances at Ford who blushed a vivid and beautiful red. Chuckling Bill closed his eyes, hearing his heartbeat again, but it wasn't alone. Fords beat beneath his, insanely, rapid like a river. 

 

In no other moment could he get away with it, they would think in unison. In no other moment were they so sure that the other would feel the same way. And in no other moment would they dare to spend moments at a time clung together like cloth dampened by the mist of some sunday morning. To feel reflected like this, it was an amazing feeling. 

 

They sat up slowly, rolling off one another but remaining close. Closer then one should ever have been to someone so dangerous. Bringing his hands up to Ford's black hair, Bill drew his head closer so that his lips would press against the red fireworks of blush that danced across his cheeks. But at the last moment Ford turned, causing them to meet the scarlet skin of his lips and jolt back almost immediately. But Bill felt a hand press itself up to the curled blonde locks of his head, pinning it in place as their lips met again sending a rush of thrill down their spines which straightened and curled their fingers tighter.

 

They laughed in the moments apart, kissing often before falling over each other sentences as they tried to speak again.

 

“My father would kill-”

 

“Your father? Mine was a priest?”

 

They met again happily, drawing themselves closer to one another. Supporting Bill as he again coughed and grew limp with pain Ford lay in the dust with him watching the stars pool overhead. As the thoughts faded from Bill’s mind, he found himself realizing something again, anew, from a different angle. Bill knew now more than ever that despite what he needed to do, he couldn’t take power from Ford's world. He couldn’t destroy it. He would move onto another. It would take more planning, but he would have to. Because fundamentally, he loved people. All people, even in their foolishness, he could see good in them. Even alongside the awful wickedness there was kindness. 

 

Even in him.

 

Ford just reminded him.

 

★

 

They fell into deeper sleep beside each other, escaping the mindscape entirely as they both parted ways in dreams within the respective mindscapes.

 

Time drew onwards in the world beyond dreams. In their physical worlds dimensions apart. The sun casted its heavy rays over Ford's body that morning. Spraying about the limp laying form which in its sleep cast a smile that lifted ear to ear. So pleasent was this workless sleep, this dreaming, that the normally light sleeper lay sound even as the dial tone clicked his name into the gun of the adversary that swept into his room.

 

Memories, those are what dreams are formed from - and thus those are what had to be dispelled on this night. All evidence

 

_ STANFORD PINES  _

 

That would let anyone know who he had dealt with

 

BILLAYON EYRE

 

Or what he was after 

FIDDLEFORD MCGUCKET

  
Would be kept away from them in the flash of a light from the gun that the star eyed Sparks held within his hands. And though he would pull the trigger for his own reasons, the creature who had backed him would make him pull it for reasons that lay in wait. In wait of the ashes that would drift on in the background of this story as it grew incipient.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I mentioned Rods in the chapter... and they're cool so go check them out.
> 
> https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/85/ae/38/85ae3805dfd022e43d27472142ce2a16.jpg
> 
> They're pretty.


	7. Gasoline

> **_It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything. -_ ** [ **_Tyler Durden_ ** ](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000093/?ref_=tt_trv_qu) **_, Fight Club_ **

 

They flipped through the pages of the journal again, well Ford did, but the others would have done the same had he ever let go of that thing. That journal, which he now clung to for reasons subconsciously sunk into the back wall sockets of his mind, was to be held by him and him alone. Attempting to grip the bindings of the journal was an impossible attempt now, not that it mattered to the lone individual in the room who had click-clacked the names of all others into the green glass system whose copper trigger had been pulled to seal away their memories.

 

Smiling, Noam's eyes paced over to the others who stood or sat at attention watching Ford rummage through the pages to answer their latest question on materials.

 

“The only thing that I could think of that holds the tensional strength to withstand the rapid torsion and compression we calculated would have to be unicorn fiber.”

 

“So we won’t be using something more… Realistic?”

 

Fixing his glasses with a slight tilt of his head Noam's eyes focused down on Fiddleford with a jesting smile across his face. Did Fiddleford not believe in Ford's mythical creatures that he had also once doubted? No this was something more.

 

“And by realistic you mean- ”

 

“Shun the non-believer why don't you Noam.”

 

Looking over at Bill with a quizzical smirk Fiddleford interjected against the blonde's pitted words and boyish smile.

“I'm not a nonbeliever… Mill-”

 

“Bill!” 

 

Ford was quick to correct him, feeling Bill tense up beside him, but not remembering why until it hit him in a brief flash of bubbly memory. Yet, the information Bill had shared with him was not a  solitary visage, and the memories that mixed with it chilled the blood in his veins causing a small smile to dash across his face for a microsecond. 

 

Noam’s hazel eyes caught the inflection of his smile and the creases it made in his skin. Shucking his shoulders forward, Noam tossed back the information, the fact that Ford obviously did in some way remember, into the back of his mind to address at a later time.

“Shoot, I’ll get it right eventually. But what I'm trying to say here is that it would be more practical to order something rather than gallivant off to find some creature that Ford probably only spotted once in a blue moon.”

 

Laughing about the room Bill slunk back in his chair again, drawing his shins off the table to tuck underneath him as he buried his long limbs into his chest to look like a puffed penguin in winter.

 

“Well Specks, that's not a problem since I can lead ya there. To the narwhal horses. No blue moon required. ”

 

Placing his hand under his chin quaintly, Bill rocked forward to rest his arm on the edge of the table, avoiding rudely pressing his elbow to the table as a proper gentleman would. But, for all his charm and his grace he was still uncomfortably shaking like a small dog as the air hung null around their conversation. Fiddleford sighed heavily, he hadn’t wanted to admit it, but he did doubt Ford’s findings even though he had seen plenty of contrary examples when they were at college. Examples he found himself wanting to forget or rationalize away as some drunken flick of the bottle - but he didn't drink. And the memories remained.

 

“Okay, I'll admit that I kinda doubt the existence of-”

 

Sifting through his own journal, Noam’s fingers slid across the smooth glossy white frame of a polaroid which he slapped down on the table in front of Fiddleford. There it was, the horse with its elegant horn pressing forth from its brow, definitive proof in all its candy mountainisk sweets and joy.

 

“Oh good lord, fine. When and where are we going?”

 

He sighed, his elbows pressed to the table in defeat as both of Ford's strange  _ frenemies _ shown smiles as sharp as tacks at him. Though it was laden with defeat, Fiddleford felt himself crack a smile alongside them. They weren't bad people, after all, no god given creature was, so what right did he have to judge them so harshly. Ford would interject on this moment with a smile of his own and a voice that fluttered with excitement as it announced itself to the small room.

 

“Now, of course, grab your hiking gear, everyone. It's time to find the magic.”

 

Laughter carried through the air as chairs slid against the dining room floor in reluctance and excitement. They were doing something almost imaginary in the hopes of achieving something groundbreaking, a quest of sorts, and though Fiddleford didn't like to daydream as much as he liked to set about work he released his judgments in this moment. 

 

For now, it was better to go with the crowd, if not for his sake, then for his friend sake. Maybe right now he didn't know what was best for Ford, for his friend whom he wanted to shelter from his own poor decision making… was that selfish of him? Yes, sheltering a grown ass man was wrong and so he would not try to redirect his friend in the manner that most church goers would. He would allow him to make his own mistakes. Because in the end Fiddleford was a kind man. 

 

The blonde was the last to slide from the chair, unfolding his long thin legs which had been curled up on the padded seat beneath him. His sprawling fingers pushed him back from the table, his feet touching the ground with no sound, and violent shivers racked Bill’s frame alongside tremors and twitches.

 

More deals. Bill had been making more and more deals since he had last seen Ford two nights ago. He had forgotten what they had talked about that night, but certainly, it wasn't important. If it had been he would have remembered it. The subconscious pressure to remember it, though, was at least disconcerting to him, and at most something that indicated that something was very wrong in the world.

 

“You know, if you want you can use one of my jackets?”

 

Ford's words drew him up from his sea of thoughts like a fisherman's net. He cast his eyes once again on Fords, letting their bright possessed yellow iris’ fall across the many angles of Ford's face that were drawn out by the vermilion morning rays. These angles, why were they so important? Moreover, why was he allowed to be close enough to make out these angles?

 

“Come on. It’s probably colder outside, and as you said before you're under enough strain holding a solid form like this.”

 

“Oh yeah, thanks, Ford.”

 

Bill beamed brightly as his heels clicked softly behind Ford who traipsed to the closet, pulling out a light blue jean wool lined jacket which had been tucked into another light brown plaid shirt. At the cuffs, it was tinted with an old but familiar blood stain that never came out even after washing it. 

 

“This one alright?”

 

“Yeah, I'm mean clothes are always fun Ford.”

 

“Is that your vanity talking?”

 

Bill felt himself laughing nervously at the comment, shucking his shoulders forward so they greeted he hears and tousled the loose flipped bangs that bounced in front of his face. It was true, clothes made him feel pretty. And sometimes feeling pretty was often more powerful that actually being pretty. It meant he could change. His laughter wasn't about that, though, rather it was a celebration of those singular moments where you feel truly known by someone. Those lovely moments where the slightest joke sparks forward a quaking happiness that pulls one away from the future and the past - making them present. 

 

“And how’d you figure that?”

 

“I remember you telling me about it.”

 

They traded the jacket in hand softly as Ford went to dig another light jacket from the closet for himself. Shucking on the jacket quickly Bill paused a moment. It was bigger in the shoulders then he had expected, or perhaps this body was too thin in comparison. He felt Ford’s eyes rest on him in a lulled manner as his eyes drifted up from his shoulders to Fords which tugged a soft wool sweater jacket over the red inked design on them. 

 

“Woah there sixer, I spotted it so now you have to let me see it.”

 

“What?”

 

“Show me the money Fordys. I wanna see the tat!.”

 

With a reluctant sigh, Ford brushed back the jacket revealing the small stars that charted over his shoulder, up his neck, and down his arm alongside planets which were cradled in the arms of some celestial space squid.

 

“I got it during college, alongside a group of um. Octopus armed warrior…. pigs… College was a real crazy place. You make a lot of poor decisions to feel like you belong anywhere at times. I regret this tattoo so much and uh. Really should have listened to Fiddleford when it came to making that decision.”

 

Bills hand drew closer to his arm until his chilled skin made contact with the warm peachy tones and red ink of Ford’s. He curved his gentle fingers around the star shapes, sending his eyes into a hazed over trance illuminated by fear and expressed wordlessly. He closed his eyes, blocking out the sight so as to only feel the warmth of the skin beneath his fingertips before looking back up to Ford with a smirk.

 

“Out of all of the bad decisions I’ve seen, this is the least pressing.”

 

Smiling so that blossoms of broken capillaries lit his cheeks Ford drew his face closer to meet his lips to the cold cheeks of the man hanging on his arm. His arm twisted up to scoop the other side of the face he kissed as it warmed rapidly under his grasp.

 

“Ford?!” 

 

Ford launched backward, confused. His heart lurched, skipping a beat as he watched Bill's tightly shut eyes blink wide-eyed at the ground before casting up to him again. Ford’s hands were up in arrest for a moment as he stuttered over an apology.

 

“I'm sorry I thought we had… I mean a couple days ago we..?”

 

“I don't remember what happened a couple days ago!”

 

Ford looked more shot down then a dove during hunting season and spiraled downwards trying to find words to explain his action to Bill who sprawled himself against the wall. 

 

“We had… established something… we had... Oh, but you were exhausted. No wonder you wouldn't remember I mean you came into my mindscape looking a wreck. I wouldn't put it past you to have acted on delirium. Hell, maybe I'm acting on it too..”

 

Fords eyes traced sadly over the flustered face of the blonde who's sprawled fingers drew back into a relaxed state as he shook out his head looking back up at him through lidded eyes. Bill rolled up his jacket sleeves hurriedly to the crook of his elbow before firmly grasping Ford's face with his draping fingers to lift his spine up from its slouch so they could look face to face again.

 

Burnished red slid breathlessly in lock with pale pink creating sensational sparks that rushed down from arms to hands to fingers, displacing them. Ford felt his shoulders crawl up and his arms undertook Bills to pulls at the tall blonde's shoulder blades passionately. 

 

Their breath steamed the morning air each time they parted, each time Bill shifted his hands from chest to back to neck trying to lock onto the man he felt so drawn to, seeing if at anytime he would push back against him. He wanted to be pushed against, to be taken charge of in some ways, but at the same time pulling Ford closer to himself felt thrilling enough.They pressed against the wall together, locking lips, parting as their hips seemed to take up a smaller and smaller area as they aligned. Flipped against the wall, fists balled in Ford's shirt,  kissing the underside of his neck Bills ears perked at the sound of footsteps approaching the kitchen. They parted quickly, jerking back into reality for the moment, letting their quickened heartbeat exhaust with their panting. The mood was killed...

 

“Why?”

 

“Not here… later, we don't want to have to hear it from Fiddleford... Plus we have work to do.”

 

Bill furrowed his brow, sighing huffily. Ford was just like his friend, married to his work. Perhaps that was for the best, though, because wasn't he doing the exact same thing? Building up a relationship only because of his work? Even though it felt so real, Bill had fostered these feelings through that charming facade he had placed over his true motivation. He had fostered it in a lie, and worst of all perhaps it was a lie that he wanted to believe himself.

 

But it didn’t feel like a lie, not as the anger interrupted him cheery face as the others paced down the hallway to see them slouched like scolded boys against the banister beams.

 

“Yall okay?”

 

Fiddleford placed his hand in a fatherly manner on Bill's shoulder, feeling it collapse from tension in a sigh of relief and to his own surprise comfort. Bills face drew back into a soft smile that reminded Fiddleford of his own son.

 

“Were fine. Just caught up in conversation.”

 

“Oh did y'all talk about faith or something? It's the only thing that makes Ford so tense.”

 

“Something.”

 

They smiled at each other for a sentimental moment before they felt the others in the room cast eyes of inquiry and judgment upon them. Words cut through their moment like a dagger through, isolating Bill as they slipped from Sparks lips like music from the devil's violin.

 

“It's hard to keep faith Bill because just like  _ love  _ it's very hard to keep in a world that offers so many  _ better  _ alternatives.”

 

Fiddleford was quick to retract himself from the conversation, smelling the atheism boiling with hidden meaning under Noam's speech. He tugged Ford along outside to talk, leaving Bill and Noam alone in that tight hallway. They strode out after them, passing by each others shoulders in the silence of the building that creaked like wood in a fireplace.

 

“I often wonder Bill, does every religion have a Judas? One who loves their god on Earth so passionately that they begin to realize that that love is a lie? That they begin to question everything about that person until they realize that they aren't really worth it?”

 

★

 

They ventured out further into the wicked and wild wilderness beyond the shack which battered and slicked the party’s skin with small scratches and cuts from the pine needles they batted from the deer trail they followed. Fiddleford mucked around, swatting his hands out in front of him like some young child who had been reluctantly dragged out of his garage into a place where he didn't belong. This effect would remain unshown as the two smug gentlemen who fought silently behind him pandered on, pushing him forward intently. 

 

“Make a left.”

 

“If I made a left I’d fall about 10 feet...”

 

“Your other left.”

 

Stopping in his track Fiddleford sighed, looking over his shoulder with a defeated smirk that seemed more frank and tired then judgemental.

 

“Pardon me asking, but do you really know the way to this place-”

 

“He does, he just doesn't know his left from his right.”

Noam smirked over the blonde's shoulder before gripping Bills shoulders in a friendly, pat on the back manner. He let go as he saw Bill's eyes roll back in their sockets, perhaps a bit too far.

 

“So chipper today Noam... “

 

“I'm surprised you aren't considering how you and F-”

 

With another sigh Fiddleford interrupted. His frank nature calling to arms against the delicate dance of egos that took place in front of him.

“Listen, y'all's rivalry can be saved for a later date. I reckon I don't know what set you off, but let's try to be a bit more professional and move forward as a team on this. Now where is this-”

 

“This way!”

 

Pushing past Fiddleford, hooking his arm into Fords as to lead him along on his strange march forward, Bill strode ahead a good few feet. He turned on his heel many times, leading them this way and that as Ford quickly took note of the route on a pad of parchment paper. When he, at last, stopped the others were very far behind, and both were slightly out of breath. Bending over Ford's lips shook loosely over words which tumbled out as he felt Bill fall, trust fall flat, on the ground in front of him.

 

“You oka-”

 

“I’m dying…”

The others were quick to catch up to Ford and Bill, their eyes set in amazement as they overlooked the large gated glen that stood behind the second half of their group.

 

“Good lord, what is that?”

 

“Well, Specs. That there is the glen of -”

 

“I'm pretty sure it was a rhetorical question, Bill.” 

 

The glare from Bill's eyes was shot quickly over at Noam who looked back at him with an evenly blunt stare. Confidence curled Bill’s vision downward like the ears of some cat who festered in anger. This correction was unlike Noam and he knew it. Noam wasn't confident without facts, and what facts did he have about a being who was so many years past the age of this lone fleshbag, or of his galaxy even. He watched almost in slow motion as Fiddleford and Ford walked past the gated walls like schoolboys, envious of their unjaded curiosity, but more over scared to be left alone.

 

Scared, he hadn’t been scared in a long time. He wasn't about to be scared with power and insight like this. Puffing out his cheeks, he rolled onto his back, letting his arms roll out and his fingers curl loosely against his palms. Dramatic as ever, he brought his hand to his head like an heiress as his other hand flecked its fingers in a shooing motion at Noam.

 

“Go on without me.”

 

“Ha. You know I can’t do that.”

 

Noam’s footsteps against the ground were slow, drifting, commanding. Masterful dare he say it. 

 

“Course you can Sparky, I mean don’t you have some research to steal after all. Better grab your pen you're missing the best stuff.”

 

“Well unlike some people I’m not missing anything.”

 

Bill looked at him with a smirk on his face, motioning to coax him onwards he retracted. This wasn't any of his concern, why should he be concerned about this foolish mortal taking the credit for the destruction of this three-dimensional world. At least in this timeline... It was better that way even, Ford wouldn't be to blame, and he wouldn't feel guilty for making Ford the butt of his last sick joke. If this pawn wanted to take the fall his knight, his wonderful knight, would have taken then why not. But then again.. He was sure Noam wasn't smart enough to make the last move, to complete the portal. So it would have to be Ford, even though it would hurt for a moment. That wouldn't matter, though, hell nothing would after he defeated axolotl - after he made everything again. Because it would have never happened to start with, no when he made a new world, a fun world. 

 

“Oh do tell, what am I missing? My sanity, my morals, my-”

 

“Your family, for one thing, you smartass.”

 

Bill shot up, shifting his hands up behind him so that his back supported itself on the bent crooks of his elbows. He watched Noam run his hands up through his now white peppered hair, trailing over other facts that seemed to come to him as if spoken through an earpiece. 

 

“Say that again, I dare y-”

 

“Save your bets, or should I say your deals. You think I wouldn’t figure it out? Sure I might be a forger, but you don't get away with discrediting another’s work on their own paper by sitting on your ass smiling at the goddamn starlight. So, of course, I found out. I found out all about you.”

 

“Well, you’re sticking your nose in places you shouldn't be-”

Bill began to pull himself up from the ground like a corpse, but his body still shook like a live wire even as his arm slid up the smooth skin of his arm to bunch the sleeve and clutch his quivering elbow. 

 

“Am I going to take advice from drugged up party going two-dimensional brat like you? No. You can’t intimidate me anymore - hell you can’t touch me unless I shake your hand and let you. I found out all about your family, your world, your mistakes. All of which you drown out by getting more and more powerful, because you think that you can remake it all.”

 

“Kid, I’m warning you -”

His fingers, the index, and middle tied together in practiced etiquette, jabbed out and Sparks who smiled and gloated on ways like a peacock. Spark’s shoulders shucked forward as his neck curved aggressively with the words his spat out at his adversary. 

 

“Warn me all you want to, I'm not afraid of you anymore. I'm not afraid of some, basic 18 years old, who wanted to see the world burn but, oops, not really. Some guy who's trying to recreate everything he lost by trading out the lives of another dimension like they were tokens at an arcade-”

 

“That’s not what I'm doing-”

 

“You’re right. Because you didn’t lose everything. You never had it to begin with. You had no opinions of your own, no family really, no world that you truly felt apart of.”

 

Noam curled around his words, seemingly crouching lower with his arms sprawled at their success, at the pain those sentences caused. He brimmed brightly, rubbing in his success as Bill folded inwards on himself, his body growing colder and more electric before his words erupted and pinned themselves in the air. 

 

“Neither do you, though.”

His words cut through the conversation like a hot knife would cut skin. Leaving no blood and rather a wound that was stitched together through melted members. Noam's arms dropped to his sides, his heart quickening as he saw somber tones wash over Bill. It was pity, directed towards Noam, that crawled forth in Bills walk, like a lion approaching a dying cub.

“You think that ideas are immortal, don't you. That that's your way of reaching immortality. We all grow up with that premise, that lie that slips slowly into our subconscious, so I understand that lie that society gave you. And in all that time, you've never had an immortal idea, one that would be carried on and branded as yours as they world paced onward. That immortal idea that would make you immortal and loved. You never had it.”

 

“But I’m going to get it that's the thing that makes us different. I'm going to work hard to make sure that I get i-”

 

“Oh yeah, you're gonna get it alright.”

 

“What do you mean.”

 

Scrawling up to Noam Bill extended his hand to brush at Noam's white flecked hair before retracting it to brush at his own almost white blonde hair with a pained grimace. His eyes shot coldly at Norms, causing his confident stance to fold and quake in the wind that whipped wildly with Bills glance.

 

“I mean you're not scared of me, and you're not scared of becoming me. Not scared of becoming someone with a lot of regrets and little time to shoo it away. Someone who also sold their time to some celestial star, who wound up not telling you that when it all goes sunny side up you never get the years back.”

 

“You're wrong. I don't look back because I actually understand that I can't change my actions I can only move forward. You, you don't get that, do you? You'll never be able to wipe the blood of your world off of your hands. You'll never be able to reclaim your family or make them love a freak like you. You’ll always be alone, with all the smarts in the world and nobody at your side.”

 

Freak, blood, family -the words sent him spinning and in due time something snapped. He didn’t have to take this, this disrespect. He had more respect for himself, and this pointless mortal who completely devalued all aspects of his life had no right to speak this way through his privileged lips.

 

Bills balled fist launched itself haphazardly at the peppered white head of hair that rested atop a face which smirked and held its ground watching the action unfold. Bill felt pain quiver in his limb, his very essence rejecting from the body and peeling back like some layer of skin on a sunburn. The body toppled forward, resting mindlessly on the ground as its flesh beveled to turn into the slimy white film it took while Bill was absent from the body. Bill cascaded off. His two-dimensional form still human in its projection, he grounded himself yet again against the earth that treated him like a ghost. Tears, cascading from his now green and blue eyes, hit the dirt as he tried to strike out against Noam again without a body. 

 

He phased through him, finding his wrist caught as he staggered forward.

 

“You can’t hurt me now? Ha, it really was all a bluff. You can't hurt anyone you don't make a deal with? Not when you’re out of phase huh?”

 

Bill jerked back, yanking his wrist from Noam as his eyes shot out with timid rage.

 

“Don't you dare speak another word you cur. I could crush you if you didn't have the devil's hands hanging over your shoulders!“

 

A devilish smile passed over Noam's face as his eyes went starry and his hand launched itself outwards to clutch Bills wrist. Bill could feel it leaving marks on his two-dimensional skin as he felt the star demons presence peel the life from both him and the body he inhabited, Noam's body. He was drawn closer to him, a hand placed in the swell of his back to keep him close, to keep his eyes locked on the starry yellow eyes of possession that laced Noam's face. 

 

In a moment, the stars shapes slipped from his eyes and his body grew limp. Noam fell through Bill, his body hitting the ground in a dead faint as Bill staggered back in pure terror, looking around swiftly trying to see the unseen that drifted around the torrents of air in the three-dimensional world.  Seeking a place to hide he inhabited the body that he had left, shifting it back into form. He shook. His mind was wracked intensely with fear that crippled him into a huddled ball.

 

The air swept over him and the long grass in the clearing alongside the looming pine needles that soared atop the trees trying to touch the clouds that circled softly over head. Shadows rolled over them, Noam who breathed heavily as he lay there exhausted from the possession, and Bill whose breath hitched in fear. 

 

Pressure, soft and cold, was placed in a caring manner against Bill’s spine to send his curling breaths out from his lungs. Cold air blew up the small loose dirt that Bill had pressed his face into as the hand rested their kindly. He breathed in, and out, in again in soft kind motions before rolling up to see who it was behind him. Who had chased the fear away? Who had comforted him? No one. Not a soul was there to touch him, merely the deer that wandered farther off in the backwoods of the field. Closing his white lashes to the rosy colored ducts of his eyes, Bill wiped the tears away and pulled himself up.

 

No one else could after all.

 

★

 

With list in hand, Ford shoveled out of the glade looking disgruntled and upset. Unworthy, impure of heart - how could he be all those things? Those unicorns didn't know what they were talking about. Maybe Bill or Noam would be able to lighten the mood for him while he went about completing the tasks those rainbow haired ponies had instructed him to complete. 

 

His legs pushed out against the tall grass as his eyes glinted over the field trying to find his friend and his  - he wasn't going to label Bill. It didn't feel right to call him anything other than one of the most infatuating people in his life.

 

Upon catching sight of him stooped over next to Noam who lay in the grass, Ford could tell that something had clearly gone sour between the two. He rushed over to them, heart pounding as he feared the worse. 

 

“What happened?”

 

“Something really bad Ford, but there's no time for that. We need to get him somewhere he can be treated, I can't wake him up.”

 

Looking at Noam, Ford's eyes paced over the red streak marks that painted his pale face from cheek to cheek with confusion. They looked like handprints.

 

“Have you been slapping him?”

 

“I was desperate okay?!”

 

“Well, that doesn't seem very rational!”

 

“I'm not a rational person Ford, I'm an artist. Now stop talking and help me get him to the car.”

 

Taking position under Noam's shoulders they quickly shoveled forth, walking to the car outside the forest at a nerve-wracking pace before laying him down on the leather interior.

 

“Shit, we left Fiddleford behind. Here take my ke-”

 

“I don't know how to drive! I'll run back and tell him. Just go!”

 

Without a moment's hesitation the pare parted ways, leaving Bill to dash through the forest like a wild animal until he reached the clearing without a moment's hesitation. The glade just beyond the clearing loomed in its monolithic structure as he paced in carefully. Unicorns were something he always tried to avoid, as they had long ago found ways to shield themselves from his influence through their magic, which was in summary unfortunate. 

 

Sighing and shrugging off the tension that overtook his shoulders, Bill paced into the stone walled garden, hearing laughter and mocking fill the air he stopped and scoffed. This was no place for a gentleman, though he couldn't call himself that now, not amongst these horses which shown attitudes akin the whores who filled up the slums outside of the church where he had crafted his wares long before. They were just as cruel too, for upon each rejection they turned up their noses to gossip about him. To spread rumors that were ladened with a hurtful truth.

 

Truth be told, he had only ever been in a relationship with men. There was just something more captivating about them, the way they carried themselves and the softness of their heavy movements in gentle times. Women had been infatuated with him, even those of higher class, but he didn't find the same pull - he found a mental connection a friendship with them that he hadn’t shared with men, but there was no physical pull.

With Ford, there was surprisingly both. A want to be physically and mentally close, and best of all it was finally shared between the two and he was finally assured of it. Fluster coated his cheeks as he strayed into the center of the unicorns domain where waterfalls sang their songs against the backdrop of serenity that read off of the looming beauty of the garden. Bill felt himself curl up into Ford's jacket sighing, shaking off the earlier feelings that lingered after what had just happened. He just wanted to be close to some one, to be comforted. 

 

He heard giggles again, but this time he knew for certain they were directed at him and so he shot them a sour look.

 

“Is that one of your little friends Fiddleford?”

 

“He looks simply dashing!”

 

“More like dashed with love.”

 

With a sigh, Fiddleford stopped brushing the long mane of the unicorn to smile happily at Bill who smiled back quizzically. 

“Girls please, you haven't even said hello.”

 

“Fiddleford… what are you doing?”

 

Fiddleford shrugged, a foolish smile painting his face.

 

“I had horses back at home, so I figured that magical ones would share a bit in common with them. And boy did my mares back home love a good brushing and braiding from time to time. You wanna help?”

 

Twisting the brush in his hands, Fiddleford offered the handle to Bill whose arms remained locked to his sides nervously.

 

“I'm allergic to horses.”

 

“Ah well, that’s a shame. Did Ford complete that list they gave him?”

 

The brush drifted through the horse's mane like a salmon through a river under Fiddlefords command as he turned back to brush through the last of the horned horse's tail, secretly pocketing the locks of hair that snagged in the brush. 

 

“No that’s actually why I’m her-

Bill coughed loudly, feeling his eyes grow red and scratchy. Was he really allergic to horses in this body? That sucks.

 

“Why I’m here... Noam fainted after a run in with some spook and so Ford went to take him to the hospital.” 

 

Fiddleford’s hands stopped mid brushing, looking at Bill in slight horror as he pulled the brush out.

 

“Are you serious? We should go then, I’d feel just awful if something happened to him while we were away.”

 

“Yeah… we should.”

 

Bill and Fiddleford hoofed it quickly, no pun intended, feeling the scorning glances behind them. The unicorns scoffed, the hair service provided to them had fled so quickly and so selfishly. But that was just human nature. Something they couldn't understand.

 

When he was far enough away from the glen, Fiddleford felt himself sigh with relief before shuffling about in his walking, coming to a stop beside a tree. He straightened his belt before lengthening his legs as he dug his hands into the jean of his trouser pockets to pull out locks of hair smothered in glitter and magic, catching Bill's eyes in the process. 

 

“You sly dog you.”

Bill smirked in a masterful way at Fiddleford who looked over at him with a Texan smirk and ruffle of his hair. Fiddleford slouched, kicking up the dust at his feet like a buffalo stopped on the plains would have.

 

“When they gave Ford that list to become ‘Pure of Heart’ lord I knew something was up. I figured this would be our only way to get anything from those deceitful mares. But god bless my heart for playing along with such -”

 

“Distasteful people? Pfft. Least you don't have a whole world full of um. Either way, I never took ya to be so crafty Specks? Job well was done.”

 

“Thanks. I reckon you're right that I count my blessings about not everyone being so self-absorbed.”

Sighs filled the air with long and tense unspoken words that tinged with questions, but little answers. Fiddleford felt something drawn out of him, some point of honest thought that he didn't want to speak about with the person present. Yet, he had no one else to speak about it with. No one except for Ford - but  the thought was about Ford.

“What do you think about Ford.”

 

“Well, that's a baited and exposing question! You want to ask something lighter first, you know like when are you gonna get married, buy a house, and have 2.5 kids to bring to thanksgiving dinner?”

 

Shooting him a blank look Fiddleford sighed kicking up more dust against the ground.

 

“Never-”

 

“Jeez, louise! Drama queen doesn't make a scene. No, I think Ford's kinda self-absorbed too.”

 

Tucking away the hair into his bag Fiddleford continued the conversation, tugging his glasses up his face with an angsty sigh.

 

“And that Noam guy. Lord, I hate to speak ill of him while he's down but honestly he's the same way and I think it's drawn something real bad outta Ford. He doesn't listen to me, I mean he never did, but now he's… Sometimes I really do know what I'm talking about. Sometimes I know what's best in a situation and he just doesn't li-”

 

“Listen to yourself. Specks were all self-absorbed in some way, we have to be to if we validate our lives.“

 

Standing up straight once again Fiddlefords brow lowered as his hand placed itself on his heart. The other drew out his arm, sprawling his open fingers out as he followed after Bill who had resumed walking.

“I don't think I’m self-absorbed, I'm just trying to look out for his well-being is all. I reckon you're doing the same?”

 

“Of course, but that doesn't mean that you're not self-absorbed. Friends share aspects of their personality after all.”

 

“Really then, so that must mean you're self-absorbed too then, huh?”

 

Bill smirked, seeing how upset he made Fiddleford delighted him. He had finally gotten a rise out of the know it all and made him reveal some true aspect of himself - his ego - to the inspirational light of knowledge. Looking down at his feet, Bill quickly scooped something up into his hands and stopped dead in his tracks to turn on his heel. When he faced Fiddleford, who stopped in front of him, Bill reached for his open hand.

 

“No, I'm just crazy.”

 

What Bill held came falling forth into Fiddlefords hands as his face grew spiteful with a large grin and rolling eyes. He turned back again on his heels, once again walking in that stiff and awkward manner he always did as Fiddleford took note of the dear teeth he had been given.

“I guess that counts. Maybe a bit too much...”

 

“Bonus points for me then. Either way, if we're gonna start gossiping about people-”

 

“We're not gossiping!”

 

“Yeah- yeah and the America won't mourn a gorilla for 6 months in 2016- 

 

“...Anyway?”

Stopping in front of the shack, the sun radiating behind him in a way that whipped his hair about wildly in the wind and spun his eyes to hold the cold but frantic grace of a victorian woman, Bill words cut through the air.

 

“There are some things I have to tell you about Noam.”

<()>


	8. Embers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long I had major writers' block and refused to post shitter things then what I already type up.

**_“Oh, yes, the past can hurt. But the way I see it you can either run from it, or learn from it.”_ **

**_― Rafiki, The Lion King_ **

 

When you first meet someone you look at them, but you don't really look at them. Instead hazy renderings become your first impression of a person - this person has red hair, this person has blonde hair, fat lips, thin hips, slim stare, whatever- and so those people become Monet like water colour blurbs set about in thee canvas of your mind. So you find that people, those someones, all begin to look a lot alike. To make this task of actually remembering who they are, without really knowing them and all dimension of their being, those someones attach names to themselves. With a name, suddenly the slightly smaller blob becomes distinguishable from the slightly larger blob going by the name Frank. With their labels, they have now become art worth remembering.

 

Bill wasn't like this, the art of remembering or giving significance to people wasn't found in their introductions nor their labels. It was found in them and them alone. He was one of those people who did look at people - who really looked at them. 

 

The angles in their face, the slightly swollen red veins on the nose or the happy wrinkles that stained the brow and cheeks were all things he had noticed. He spent so much time on that, that he found it really funny when people got upset over him not remembering their name. Something so small so simple so not them. A label. He remembered everything about them, how they looked, but they just wanted him to remember the label. How practical. What does description of an art piece hold over the ability to look up the real thing after all? And for that, a label is required.

 

Bill could appreciate the practicality, and he of course didn't mind Fiddleford who as they stumbled their way into town tripped over his name again and again. What he did mind, though, was when the southerners lips drew over the label that belonged to his brother. Because he didn't remember anything about his brother beyond that label now. It had been too long and Bill had become too practical.

 

“Sorry again… Bill”

 

“Now you're getting it!”

 

“Good... I just, it's hard to believe that he would be trying to scam off of Ford research, and we shouldn't be talking like this when hes in the hosp-”

 

“Oh live a little why don't you. You don't like him either, or have you forgotten that too? Remember when Ford lost his journal though. Remember who had it? Noam. If that isn't proof that he's messing with something, at least, then the fact that he's at the hospital should give some indications alone.”

 

There was a long pause in the conversation as Fiddleford furrowed his brown, his lips thinning to a flat line that strayed out the left.

 

“We shouldn't be talking like this.. And I don't remember him taking Ford's journal… are you feeling alright?”

Fiddleford eyes paced over the sickly thin man in front of him. He hadn’t wanted to say anything, but he knew for a fact that he was malnourished, dare he say mildly anorexic. In fact, he had never seen Bill eat before, nor sleep before, nor stay longer than one night. Where did he go… where did he live. Here he was opening up his own world to Bill, and yet Fiddleford didn't know a thing about him. If there was one thing he knew though, it was that Ford knew more about him. More than any friend should know about the other. They were closer than friends, and that didn't bother Fiddleford. What bothered him was that these two were tiptoeing around him. 

 

And you only tiptoe around people when you think that what you're doing is wrong. His thoughts were cut off as he bumped into Bill who had stopped to fold his arms up at his chest and cast an angry feminine glare at him that shook him to his core.

 

“I'm feeling just peachy.”

He flared his fingers as he spoke rolling his eyes as his hip dropped sharply in a dramatic stance before rolling back up smoothly. Yeah… he was most definitely Fords type, if Ford ever admitted that he had a male type.

“Come on, even I remember it. It was the first day you came over. About four days ago. Honestly if you don't remember meeting me for the first time at least you can remember that.”

 

“I don't remember it…”

 

Fiddlefords mind paced sluggishly as if misted by a green clouded mor. There was, something there to remember. Moreover there was something more important that he knew he alone would remember, but what? The thought left quickly as he dug deeper, finding himself grasping some more important fact which jutted from his lips.

 

“Wait it's already been four days. Lord I promised my wife I’d call her as soon as I stopped off here.”

 

“Well we’re pulling closer to the hospital, thankfully. I'm not sure how much longer my legs could last we’ve been walking all day.”

 

Fiddleford nodded, taking the lead and pressing forth in a fast pace walk trying to save every second he could. Every moment, at least now seemed so important. It was as if he was snapped back to life, the final reel running after a long series of separate pictures had been laid out like an animation strip.

 

“So, are you from the city then?”

 

“Huh?”

 

“Said you don't do much moving. I’d just assume folks from the city don't move as much.”

 

“I'm from a city of sorts. I guess you could call it that but it's a bit more foreign.”

 

“Yeah, I guess cities in Egypt are a bit different from-”

 

“Whoa there Clyde, that's far off from where I come from. No Specks, guess you could say the closest culture to the city where I grew up in would be England.”

 

“Englan-”

 

“Victorian England.”

 

Fiddleford was confused now. Victorian England was rigid in its rules and regulations, maybe this was what he was referring to rather than this city, somehow, actually being the city equivalent to an Amish settlement. 

 

Trying to pick up the conversation again as they rounded the corner drive that led up to the hospital steps, Bill decided to question the nature of the awkward conversation.

 

“That's a really dadish question to ask of me though, Fiddleford. I mean it's not like I’m marrying into the family after all.”

 

“Pfft. Sure feels like you are.”

 

The slight slip of the tongue brought Bill back to the present, pulling him for the moment out of his endless train of thought to resonate with the motions of that singular statement. He felt like a child again, one who looked up at his dad in soft wander through blind eyes. Wondering how in the world this person in front of him could see anything about him, could appreciate anything about him. But Fiddleford’s words didn't treat him like this. His words and fatherly smile were directed towards Ford. But how could a bond so tight, so thick as thieves, so familiar- be formed from anything but blood?

 

“What do you mea-”

But it was gone in a flash, without judgement, merely a quick bit of conversation distracted by another posed question.

 

“So how old are you? I mean you and Ford couldn't have met in the doctoral program, you look too young for it.”

 

Fiddleford smiled like a dad, a worried and nervous dad. What was Bill going to say. He was millions of years old, though within his own years he knew he was merely 20. This thought hit him like a brick. Humans didn't live that long, comparatively they lived for but a blink of the eye. How unfair - that people so much more complex than his own live a fraction of the time. But Bill wouldn't have to think of that much longer - soon they'd be out of the picture too. Everyone would. When he stripped himself from time itself they would all a dead timeline. 

 

“I'm 30ish, I don't really keep track anymore since time goes by so quickly now. Kinda seems pointless. “

 

It didn't matter, these moments. He wouldn't have them anymore. He could watch the world burn, do everything wrong at every step of the way. Because just so long as he didn't die, he would be able to make sure it never happened - that he never happened. Every action he would take would have no repercussions. And everything would be alright again. So why not lie now? It wouldn't matter.

 

“Sure you're not 25?”

 

“What makes yo-”

 

“Your attitude towards getting older seems to match it more. That's all.”

 

“Yeah… guess I should really act my age..”

 

Bill sighed, the weight of his thoughts creeping into his conversation made his smirk harder and harder to uphold. His mind trailed on nonetheless. He knew was going to gain power, enough of it to become a god - to make the wish that Axolotl refused to grant a reality. He would remove himself from every timeline. And where others like Astar and Kryptos though his conquest was just to reminisce in his misery, or to bring back his world for him to sculpt Bill knew the truth. His quest was fold in on himself like a pleated wing. To extinguish the arson before he could ever create the fire. Seeing the disheartened smirk on his face Fiddleford felt his guard lower and the weight shift off his shoulders. This guy might have been a mystery in many other ways, but at least he knew he was human underneath it all.

 

“Nah, my wife always tells me you're only as young as you feel. So I wouldn't be the best judge of how it's like to be 30..ish.. Never really be any age but 30.”

 

Cracking a smile at him Bill felt himself push on that.

 

“So you just popped out an adult, huh?”

 

“No it's not like that. I grew up on a Ranch. I was a gumpy tech kid on a ranch with 6 other siblings who were all girls and a man's man of a dad. So I learned how to grow up fast.”  

 

They cracked smiles at each other as they tracked up the stairs, caught up in the little moments that wouldn't matter. Parting ways, Fiddleford rushed to the phonebox while Bill ascended the long ramped stairwell up the the top floor, they were caught up in the little moments. Bills feet ticked up the stairs in a soft racket as Fiddleford dialed away, but both swirled. It was the kindness to want to know one another that pleated Bills ridged heart and gave perspective to Fiddlefords. Perhaps he needed to slow down. Maybe they both needed to.

 

As he tumbled over the white linoleum floor, Bill found himself caught hanging loosely in the doorway, simply staring. 

 

White hair, his hair reflected in the glass like the moon in a dark cast of water. The yellow wind whipped streams in his hair now were fainter, cast over by a monsoon of blank parchment like colour from where it seemed his soular energy fled from his spirit into dark hand of the star demon. 

 

No one had told him. Because no one really looks at a person's face. Nobody but him. 

Drifting down from his reflection, his eyes rested on the white which shown through the opaque visage. Noam was flecked with more gray and silver hairs as he rested on the bed, his pack rested beside him as Ford sat at his wrists on the opposite side of the bed.

 

Hands twitching for the door handle, Bill brushed it open smoothly. The latch clicked, sending Ford's eyes upward. 

 

Okay. He’d be okay and that was fine. The doctors couldn't explain a damn thing, they never could. That didn't matter though, because they knew he'd be okay. Bill rested in the chair, a weight set on his brow and a hand clenched around his heart.

 

This kid was messing with fire. He was messing with Astar who would inevitably get Bills way to prove some small point just to spite him. It was all so, tedious. And he felt himself feel so heartless in saying so.

 

With a sigh he rolled forward into the silence. Pressing his elbows to his knees, he dropped his hands which scooted up to take the place of his elbows. Keeping his head down, Bill felt a hand place itself on his head, petting down the fluff of his hair cut. Fingers; pinky, ring, ring, middle, index, thumb - Ford's hand. It was Ford’s hand this time and he rolled up to look at him softly.

 

“Your hairs lighter then I remember.”

The words seemed to tremble through his lips, and for once Bill's hands didn't tremble alone. He could feel the quivering, the weakness and questioning in his voice.

 

 “So’s his.”

 

They looked to the bed together frowning. Bill’s eyes drew back to Ford, drawing himself closer wanting to stifle the question he knew was building enough energy and guilt to spill forth from Ford's lips. He pushed closer, leaning against him and placing his hands over Fords before he felt him ask.

 

“What happene-”

 

“He tried to go directly to the source of where I get my information from. And he was overtaken by it.”

 

Falling into his hands, Ford sighed long and hard. His worry was now turning sour and jagged. He wanted answers, he wanted the snappy gentleman beside him to stop pushing things aside for decencies sake. He wanted, no, needed him to be open about this. So Ford's lips darted out in a sigh of frustration.

 

“You're being so vagu-”

 

Folding his legs into his chair like a child Bill tensed at the tone in Ford's voice before mimicking it.

 

“Sometimes Ford I need to b-”

 

“No, you really don't.”

Ford drew up from his hands, facing Bill with intensity in his eyes. He was more assertive then Bill had thought. And as he continued onward Bill felt himself closer and closer to snapping back in aggression.

 

“So please, explain this small-”

 

Aggression was but an understatement, Bill wasn't aggressive - he was spiteful. If this… Kid… wanted to push Bill into exposing himself to Ford he had done it. But Bill wasn't going to go out telling the truth without making himself look like a saint in the process.

 

“He decided that he was going to find out more about me Ford, and in doing so he found a person who had all the answers. That person, was my muse you could say. Accept my Muse buddy boy lacks care for anyone but himself. The only reason he ‘enlightened me’ was so that he could use me, be amused by me. But like all sane people, I eventually got wise and sought to undo my wrong doings. So here I am, a middle man who bridges insanity with rational people, a person who's taken too many hits to let others take one's for me. And here I am, getting bypassed by a guy who's making the same mistakes as me. Cycles always repeat and repeat Ford. It's one big circle of martyrdom and lies. No wonder my people worshiped circularity. They were the same way.”

 

Bill could feel his smile stab at Ford, but it was a double edged blade as he too felt his chest hollowed and his body wishing to curl in on itself like a trapped animal. Ford casted his view to the side, knowing he pressed on something that he hadn't wanted to hear. Ford’s hand clutched around his chest, digging into the knit so that he could feel all his digits choke out the rapid pulsations of his heart. He hadn’t wanted to hurt this bad, he just wanted some steady answers. Some logical way to make sure everything would turn out okay. Ford felt a hand wrap over his, thumb, index, middle, ring, pinky - this could be anyone's hand, but not with the way it scrawled over Ford's fingers and laced its way under and in between them to loosen their grip.

 

“Maybe this is getting too dangerous?”

 

Ford's words were abrupt, shaken in nervousness and presentiment. He didn't want any more loss to creep its way into his life. 

 

“No, danger only occurs when your on the verge of something great. We can't stop now.”

 

It was such a rehearsed answer… and it came out as bitter as Bill felt. It came out and pushed Ford away. Yet its undertones were more meaningful and comforting. Ford was on the verge of something greater than he knew. He was but a small cog in the wheel of time. The cog that would break the wheel, and ultimately become its new foundation. 

 

“Y-you're right...We won't stop, we'll just need to keep a closer eye on things.”

 

“On Noam you mean.”

 

“On all of us. On you. I don't want you to lose anymore. We cant-”

 

“Ford- ”

Bills words were a quiet and beaten whisper that sent guilty tears brewing from his eyes. Sure, he could watch the world burn, he could wash away the guilt of this and every moment that followed after. But he couldn't watch Ford try to do the same with promises of righting his wrongs with future precautions. Not when he was going to leave him with the biggest mistake he’d ever make. Bill was going to leave Ford in the same position as he had been so long ago. A cog in the wheel.

“Just… stop..”

 

Bill’s hand was balled on his chest as he looked over Noam from his position pressed against Ford who turned to hold him tightly so that his face was buried in the fluffy white locks. Noams eyes were twitching, his body awakening, and Bill prayed like all hell that his eyes didn't have stars in them. 

 

“Where am I-”

 

Gasping Ford shot up looking at Noam with relief that weighed down his shoulders like a rock. He watched with worry as his friend on the bed tried to shift to sit upright before quickly motioning him to keep down with his free hand as Bill peaked out of the corner of his eye fearfully.

 

“Don't try to sit up. Let me call the nurse.”

 

No stars, just thick hazy eyes tinged red that casted over Bills as he clung to Ford. Noam smiled softly, chuckling before coughing outwards. Rolling his eyes Bill muttered under his breath.

 

“Jeeze Noam. Don't push yourself like th-”

 

Paying no mind to his rumblings, Noam smiled at the pair who still clung together gently in the eyes of the public. 

 

“Looks like you were smart enough to figure it out after all Ford.”

 

“Figure what ou- Noam just wait for the nurse without causing a fuss.”

 

Fluster coated Ford's face as Bill started with estrangement at Noam. His body ran cold, as if producing its own wind which prickled his skin with bumps. He could hear Noam chuckle and laugh in a way that painted him as fearless. This man…? Was Bill scared of him? No. He was scared of him telling Ford anything, and so there he clung to Ford's chest. Like a cat.

 

“Don't try to weasel your way out of this one. Hooking up right when I'm lying here dying.”

 

“Noam please.”

 

Ford laughed awkwardly, happy that Noam was even awake to tease him about how he clung to Bill so openly now. They laughed together for a long time until the door clicked open and Bill felt himself spring away from Ford who jerked up trying not to be caught by his friend who now clicked open the door to slide into the room.

 

“Fiddle… Fiddleford? Whats wrong?”

 

With his glasses in his hands Fiddleford turned to look up at his friend through his thicketed red eyes and shallow gaunt face. But instead of catching Ford's face, instead of examining every curve and angle that refracted in empathy towards Fiddlefords distraught - he caught sight of the slight green glass of a bulb - which was attached to a copper gun, a red glass tube, and a scrolling dial that peaked from Noam’s pack which rested on the ground opposite of his friend.

 

Memories flooded back into Fiddlefords head, memories that he had wanted to forget as they sent his heart racing and his mind wandering into horror-filled possibilities.

 

He knew two things as his eyes paced over that pack. He knew that device proved Bill right. And he knew his wife was dead.

 

<()>

 

You can't be happy all the time. It's 5pm and you can't be happy because you can't be asleep even though the moon crawled its' jagged face across the sky long ago. It's 6pm and you can't be happy because you have to choke down food you don't want because in some small way you feel as though you need to live despite wanting to die. It's 7pm and you're still not happy because you're still there at the table, ass pressed into a hard wood chair which presses back on you spitefully lamenting at you to eat your vegetables because you put effort into cooking them. It's 8pm and surprise your still not happy because you didn't eat. Then it's 12am. Then it's 1am, 2am. 3am. And you're still not happy, because you can't be asleep.

 

Within sleep, Fiddleford would have found himself without thoughts of fear racing through his mind like a track horse. He would have not been consumed by the absolute sadness of loss, even if he believed it to only be temporary. Most importantly, he wouldn't be consumed by the guilt caused by him being more shaken by the fear of what he had experienced two nights ago then his wife's own death.

 

Fiddleford couldn't sleep, so he was up again. He couldn't tinker as he normally would when he was upset or processing, because his mind was too focused to get distracted. To focused on the reality he was currently in, to accept that back home Eileen was laying on some cold slab-

 

4am… and he still wasn't happy. He wasn’t sad either. He was null. **Voidless**.

 

But Music… Music hung in the air, each wave rolling over to resound within the desolation and concavity which Fiddleford had felt himself transform into from the radio. Tipping back in his chair under the careful watch of the all seeing eye that hung about on the couch waiting for words to fill the air Fiddleford stared off into the hazy nothingness. He didn't want to feel the nothing, he wanted to feel strong again. He needed to be there for other people. He needed to know what they had to do and yet here he was. Stuck without ideas or direction. 

 

Fiddleford wanted to speak out. But he couldn't find the words to strike up a conversation with Bill who clicked and dialed at the radio broadly. He couldn't find words to strike up a conversation on the car ride home, and he couldn't find them now at 4pm. So they just sat there. The empty figure and the voidless man. Waiting. Waiting for Ford to return home after visiting Noam who hadn’t been discharged so they could all go to sleep. Or talk. Something… 

 

“When you said it was all pointless… remembering time…”

 

Stopping his hand from turning the dial, Bill pressed into the couch curling his shoulders up to his ears as his fingers skimmed the wooden runner of the couch. They stopped their torrent through the banner upon catching the notes. 

 

Bills world went black in a moment, loosing thought in his response as he was sent into a torrent of swirling black - the guideless thoughts in his mind a serenade of tones swirling within abstract vision. 

“Prmiere Gymnopedie….”

 

The song faded into the back of his mind as numbness silenced the world around him in important reflection. It was a movie moment that Fiddleford felt himself drawn to watch before the character on the screen suddenly broke free and twisted back into his own reality. Bill batted his thoughts away with a shoo of his hand, triggering the music to fill the tension between them again.

 

“Specs don’t get on that-”

 

“It is pointless though, because... The bad still.”

 

Fiddlefords hands waved about in the air in some limb and unforgiving motion which slapped down on the couch as he sighed.

 

“Remains. And the good is only this big hazy cloud of feelings. Like I remember this one time she-”

 

Bills eyes darted up to look at him with the grace of an attentive child before Fiddlefords words feel to nothing and resounded in the room as empty hollow silence. 

 

“I guess… what I'm trying to say is it's hard to remember what we want to remember. But it's really easy to remember what we want to forget.”

 

“I know it… Look. I know you don't want me to say I’m sorry for your loss, my condolences, or I remember how hard it was for me when my brother died because frankly in the heat of the moment no one wants that reminder. But I am going to say is that what makes memory important is the fact that we can forget.”

 

“I feel like… Like I don't even remember how she looks. Like she's just a bunch of-”

 

“Hazy memories, clouded over and idealization or demonization… That's how it is.”

 

Outside at four in the morning the world around them stalled to exhibit its hazy luster in the pale vision of the moon, and the conversation slugged on in a more panicked step.

 

“Why”

 

“You'll go insane asking questions like that.”

 

“You're right…. about more than just that.”

 

Cracking a smile, as he was the only one at the time who could crack a smile, Bill gazed up at Fiddleford seemingly cooing him onward as he uncurled and stretched out.

 

“Oh how vague and ominous. You really are in the avoidance stage aren-”

 

“Bill, I’m not avoidin anything. So take your victory with grace for once and hear me out.”

 

Words stalled the music yet again, dimming it out as the song at last ended.

 

“Remember a couple days ago, when I first arrived.”

 

“Yeah of course.”

 

“Do you remember a few days before that.”

 

“Um… no. Not vividly.”

 

“So he’s - Noam that is - has been doing this more often and longer that I had thought.”

 

“Doing what?”

 

“Well, the night I first got here I remember Ford and I went to supper at Susan’s Diner and came back home late to find Noam grabbing ahold of the journal Ford had pitched a fit over in the morn. So when we hauled off to bed and that's when I heard some rustling. So I got up and paced down the stairs to Ford's room.”

 

Closing his eyes with a deep sigh Fiddleford drew his mind over the moment as if it were unfolding again and again in his mind. The creak of the wood against his slippers, his knock on the door which pushed it open in one quick swing, and the yellow ghostly light that drifted from under Ford's lids as he lay there in his sleep turning and mumbling in his sleep. 

 

“I shook him awake and so he got up and looked me square in the eyes with the most confused look on his face. But his eyes. They were glowing unnaturally, and the pupils were slitted like a snakes. Lord it was... but he mumbled out my name all confused and so I assumed he was okay, but I knew something more was going down.”

 

Looking into his hands Fiddleford felt himself roll his eyes in the same manner he had after he heard Ford stumble over a  _ what… I'm fine… how are you…  _ before his breath hitched. 

 

“I got up. I turned around and left, but when I did I caught something out of the corner of my eye dart back in the shadows. That something made me more uneasy. So I decided to act normal. Go to the kitchen, grab a flashlight and fish out my gun from my bag. When I was creaking through the hallway I heard clicking, like a dial turning, coming from the room again. So I darted into the kitchen, and it darted after me. Shouldn't say it - Noam darted after me and I slid into the kitchen.”

“And I tripped. And I twisted around to see him, crawling up the chair with my other arm, heart beating right out of my chest. It was dark, like his face drew in the shadows over it, I can't even begin to describe it. His eyes were glassy and the whites shown like starlight - Then he just… raised that gun, the one he has in his pack and- 

 

Fiddleford clenched his chest, his eyes darting down to look at a single spot on the ground while his mind dashed over them moment. The moment when Noam’s fingers crawled across the dial in jagged twitching pin like movements, turning it forward slowly, backwards sharply, before dropping away into a limp and lifeless stance as his left hand raised the gun, its green glass system shining in the cold light of the hallway, and its copper trigger pulled. 

 

“IT'S- fine… you don't need to tell me anymore.”

 

Looking up, Fiddleford saw he wasn't the only one gripping his chest now.

 

<( * )>

 

There is a time between the night and the morning in which all can agree that it is too late to sleep and, yet, too early to rise. This morning, or night perhaps, is shrouded in a thicker darkness that makes every light beam that strays across the face - creeping along the thin frame of glasses or cowering in the glimmering eye - shine in a way no camera could ever capture. If one lived during this time from dusk to dawn, they would surely live longer than any normal man should. 

 

Thoughts like this, passed in Ford's mind as he twisted the leather of the steering wheel down that long road and felt the wheels buckle as they pressed into the dirt road. Ford could hear these things now, only because the dark sky that engulfed the roadways was so still that it pinned all animals, currents, and plants like a museum collection. Yet, there he was. The only viewer in the museum it seemed, one to wander alone with all these opinions and no one to share them with.

 

Time passed on that roadway only because his thoughts ran rampant in his head. Distrust, he clicked open a door, then, mistrust, and drama it seemed were all part of his life now. And they flowed through him more briskly than the air or the strum of some godly instru- he was stopping. Not noticing the lights were out until he felt no more motion in the car, Ford felt himself tense with frustration. 

 

He unbuckled, unlocked, and popped the hood of the car. 

 

“Shit.”

 

His breath was fire against the cold air he had been kept away from on the ride home, and as he worked to jar some life back into the battery it continued to smoke out like smoke from a dragon. His hands shook, cold and brisk as they pried up the tools from his trunk and set to work changing out what was now covered in acid over-leak. 

 

“Lets just get this over with huh?”

 

With wrench tucked round in his fingers Ford lifted the battery out in a jerk, bouncing his hand into the hot car motor. Ford dropped his hold immediately, letting the battery sink back into its position while the wrench dropped with a clink through the car frame onto the ground below it.

 

“Good lord, am I ever gonna get a break!”

 

Sound resounded off the trees, clearing the night's silence to focus on Ford's huffing breath and cradled hand. He looked around by habit, despite knowing no one was there before dropping to the ground to find his tool. 

 

There it sat, midway towards the grass and the road calling for Ford to stretch under the car to reclaim it. As his fingers extended out to swat at it, the thicker darkness casts it starlight over something, making it gleam and glow from its position not too far from the roadway tucked under a few stones which peaked together. 

 

With fingers pressed into the cold metal, Ford retracted upwards, rolling slowly to stand before the hood of his car which he now closed as he strayed towards what he knew to be an egg. 

 

A very large egg.

 

Curiously he picked it up, and the cold shell pulsed with some dying life that clung to the warmth of hand only to be separated by the thin shell that captured the glossy light. 

 

His feet resounded on the ground, opening and closing the car door in a heat of the moment decision to keep whatever was inside alive before making his car repairs. Again the night resounded as he worked, as he finished, and as he drove home with his lights flickering against the white bands of the road.

 

Time now passed quicker, he clicked open a door, then another, motioning through the silent night like a ghost with this spectacle in his hands. Despite all that had been said to him by the doctors, this at least proved to himself once again that he wasn't simply here for his own ambition. He was here to be kind - to mean something in a world where nothing seemed to mean much.

 

“Ford?”

 

A smile cast over Fords face as he heard Bill rise from his position on the couch in a hurry. His oxford heels clicked against the ground as he swooped into the room like a bird in flight. While the white cloud of hair sprung back in recoil with his abrupt stop at the doorway between the entry hall and the kitchen. Ford peeled his gaze up to look at him.

 

“Everythings fine, they’ll be releasing him on his own terms in a couple of days.”

 

“Ford - about that - we really need to tal-”

 

Looking over Ford with a windswept stillness and urgency, Bill felt himself hesitate. Ford stood there like a boy beaten in the rain, his tired arms wrapped around some object whilst his shoulders carried the weight of the world. Had the doctors questioned him once over, twice over - it didn't matter. Regardless of that, Bill would have continued had he not found himself reflected in Ford's weary eyes and drawn back to a place in his childhood where in the same situation there had been no mercy shed upon him.

 

“It… it can wait. What's that you got there?” 

 

“And egg of some kind. It looked abandoned so I picked it up.”

 

“Some poor mother bird probably misses that thing Sixer. Should go put it back.”

 

“It's too late for that.”

 

“Yeah, guess it's too late to do much anyhow.”

 

Rolling his hands to rest at his hips and his head to press against his shoulder Bill sighed with bitten lip. It was very late, and Ford needed his rest. He closed his eyes sighing again as he felt Ford press his cold lips against his frigid skin, drawing his quivering hand up to Ford's cheek.

 

“Looks like I should get going then huh? Let you sleep a little, get some more beauty rest.”

 

Patting Ford's cheek, Bill's smile drew him in for another kiss before parting again.

 

“You know you can stay here if you want. Just let me get this egg under a heat lamp… Where… where do you go anyway?”

 

“You'll see one day. I won't want you to, but you will.”

 

<( * )>

 

Balling his fist tighter in Ford's nightshirt, Bill couldn't calm the aggression brewing in him. He needed to tell him, so why didn't he. Why did he? Bill sighed, the night growing more tepid as he found the sounds of his own mind the most troubling. He didn't want to sleep. He feared he was missing something, losing something, each time he closed his eyes. He knew for a fact that Noam wasn't in control - he had lost that a while ago and the thought that his demons now crept in upon him once more did not settle his discomfort. So he clung to Ford, protective, foolish, and overwhelmed with the loss of the opportunity to tell Ford as his eyes.

 

He fought back a force that pulled him into sleep. The body he possessed now kicked back on him violently, voicing its own power and control throughout its mindscape. In a quick motion, Bill felt himself evicted, tumbling through the space of the cabin as the body still in his shaped flocked with the intelligence of its original owner.

 

Glassy eyes peeled open only to dart around the room as the shapeshifter muttered a soft,

 

“Where…”

 

Before it drew its form up from Ford's side to pace about the room. Frowning heavily, Bill stiffened his one eye against the creature which now looked up at him harshly.

 

“A deal is a deal shifty.”

 

Straightening itself, the shifter stood briskly with back straightened as it rose elegantly through the morning light. The amber shown off of its skin with as if covered in water as it drifted to the doorway weakly before clutching it to support itself.

 

“Exactly. And you just finished your end of the deal…”

 

Standing again, she walked through the hallways like a beaten soldier, not minding what trauma had been inflicted upon her by harboring the demon within her rather focusing on navigating the hallways quietly.

 

“I didn't think you would actually,”

 

She coughed raggedly as a smile struck her lips with pain. Her legs staggered up to move like a ballerina through the kitchen into the study, but her knees locked and sent her sputtering through her words onto the kitchen floor. She was weak from hunger, uncompensated by Bill's magic this body aimed to fall apart. But her eyes fill with wonder and a happiness instead of pain and brought tears into their valleys. 

 

“but you did. I… I spent”

 

Her voice was hoarse, as if stabbed by the sorrow and pain of life in such a way that made it recoil like a beaten animal. And she was a beaten animal, but worse, she was a mother who lost her child. There are words for those who lose a lover, a parent, but there are none for her. For mothers are never to lose their children - such loss is an unnatural cruelty.

 

“so much  _ time...  _ thinking the worst of people...”

 

With another cough, she brought her thin form up to stand tall before striding through the kitchen with newfound energy that blistered her skin in the cold morning air.

 

“But here, here comes a time where someone-someone actually, actually does something. I wasn't ready to believe it.”

 

As she passed through the kitchen and into the study her eyes darted around the room until she spotted it lying there under the lamp with flooded it with golden rays of light against it cream shell.

 

“But there it is. Telling me how wrong I was. And I'm so happy to be wrong.”

 

Reaching out, her hands wrapped calmly around the egg before she shirked all weight within her body to the ground. Shaking, the shapeshifter pulled the egg to her human chest sighing out cold morning air as tears flocked down her glistening skin. She held her shape, her soul too within the body despite its attempts to make this her last breath.

 

“I thought I lost you.”

 

The breath of a dying mother. Something that Bill would hover over with empathy, but could never quite understand until it had at last stilled and calmed itself. With a gentle hand like that of a child, Bill offered up his hand again for her to take. Pressing her fingers against it, her eyes glanced upon him and all his stillness.

 

“Our deal is still in swing honey, and though I’d love to say this is some kind of happy ending, ha ha. It's not.”

 

“I… I don't want to die.”

 

Her words were spoken in fear, but not for her own life. Ruptured in his own humor, Bill felt a bead of condensation glide down his angles.

 

“Well, here I am shifter. Back by unpopular demand- “

 

His nervous chuckling was cut through with a glance that dared to strike at his soul. Clenching his fingers around those of a person who looked and felt just like he dreamed to be and feel before everything went awry he welled with tension. 

 

“I want to watch him grow up..”

 

“Of course you do.”

 

“Will you let me spend time with him…”

 

“....”

 

And that tension snapped like a wire in an instant.

 

“Yes… of course I will.”

 

Gritting his vision so narrow with rage his voice spoke out low and groveling. He needn’t speak a word for everyone to know that he was indeed enraged at the memories of his own mother. Enraged because he couldn't understand how other mothers were so… devoted.

 

“Who am I to get between a mother and her son.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> (Thank you so much for reading this small introduction chapter. Please feel free to comment plot suggestions and actions for this story. I will try to leave all chapters at the end with a decision to be made by you dear readers. Additionally, please give me kind, helpful, and specific feedback on my writing. I can always improve.  
> Thanks again for reading see you in the next chapter.)


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